I'm From Driftwood

by Layne Box

Growing up, my mom and I spent lots of time in the car, traveling to see family. We tended to move a lot and our family was always hours and hours away. So this was our time to talk and catch up with each other. So naturally, when I was being picked on about being gay, we talked about it. This started at an early age and I always denied it. But the talk with mom was always, “You know if you are gay, I would love you anyway.” My response of course was “I AM NOT GAY!!” That would end the conversation and then we would move on to something else.

Years later when I finally came out to my friends and began dating men, I thought it was time to tell mom. So again, on a trip to see family I started out with, “Mom I have some bad news.” Concerned, she asked what, and I began to tell her about how I was in a car accident and I left the scene and that the other person was injured pretty bad. I went on about how I was being sued and it wasn’t looking good. Naturally my mom was upset and concerned, but was totally supportive and wanted to help no matter what. Finally when I had her totally engulfed, and pretty emotional, I looked at her and said, “Mom, I am just kidding, I am gay.” That is when she slapped me and asked why I would do that? My response was, “Well I figured if you could love me when I almost killed someone, being gay couldn’t be that bad.”

She stopped the car and said, “Like I said before, I love you no matter what.”

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by Michael Krezner

Despite the fact that I grew up in a conservative household —my mother was raised Irish Catholic, my father Lutheran —my parents always taught me to be accepting and tolerant of other human beings. I never heard any racism come from their lips.

Before coming out to them in 2008-January, I didn’t know what to expect. Would they kick me out? Send me to conversion therapy? Pretend the conversation never happened? They did none of those things: they accepted me just as I am. I was still their son —not even their autistic son or their gay son, I was still just their son.

Twenty three months later, I met a landmine. I told my mother that I was seeing someone whom she had already met —someone whose skin color wasn’t the same as my own. … I didn’t expect her to react as she did. She was unhappy, very unhappy —in essence, she said that I should not be dating someone outside of my own “culture;” as though skin color matters more than a person’s character.

Fuck that! Love is love, regardless of shape. Regardless of sex. Regardless of gender. Regardless of autisticness or neurotypicalness. Regardless of skin color.

I learned something about my mother that day: despite protests to the contrary, she does have a problem with her gay son.

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by Gay Lynn Costa

When my son, Kyle, was fourteen years old, I asked him point-blank if he was gay. He admitted to me tearfully that he was. We hugged and cried together, and I let him know in no uncertain terms that it made no difference to me whatsoever. We began an adventure together that day, mother and son, that has been wonderful and heartbreaking, joyful and painful. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

From that day forward Kyle never saw any reason to hide from the rest of the world. Admittedly, I worried from time to time that he may have come a bit too far out of that safe closet, but I didn’t ever want to make him feel ashamed of who he was by asking him to “be more discrete.” I didn’t want to shove even one of his toes back into the darkness.

In the small, predominately Mormon town of Kaysville, Utah, Kyle confidently made his way through junior high and into high school. His outgoing personality and sense of humor won him a lot of friends, and all seemed to be going well. So when the principal called me one afternoon to tell me Kyle had been “mobbed” by a group of guys after school, the world as I knew it was turned upside down.

I raced to the school with tears streaming down my face. The flood of emotions that was surging through me is difficult to describe. I wanted to find the little mother fucker who had instigated this and beat the shit out of him myself.

I burst through the doors of the school and into the principal’s office to find Kyle physically okay –a couple of scratches, but nothing major. The real damage came to light as the principal explained to me what had happened.

As Kyle was leaving school that day, a group of the football players followed him and began verbally assaulting him regarding his being gay. The terms they used were horrific, and the humiliation was beyond what anyone should have to endure. There was a physical scuffle as they surrounded him, but before they could throw many punches someone broke the crowd up.

The ring leader, I was told, was waiting in another room, and his mother was on her way.

I was in a fog of outrage and pain. Kyle sat next to me, quiet and sad. I was seething. It’s a good thing I didn’t know what room that kid was in.

The principal had called the police, and they showed up to investigate. They were calling this a “hate crime”, a term I’d hardly heard in 1996, and they were promising to prosecute. Good, I thought. Good for the principal and the police officers who took this as seriously as they should have.

Then the door opened and this kid’s mom walked in. Oh, my god. I knew her.

I had been an active member of the LDS church for many years, but because of my differing liberal opinions (regarding issues such as homosexuality) I had long been inactive. Julie Smith (not her real name) was the president of the Relief Society – the LDS women’s group for the ward. She had been to my house a couple of times, urging me to reconsider and come back to church. Each time I explained to her that I just didn’t believe the way they did, and would never be back.

Wow. Here she now stood, as stunned to see me as I was to see her. She sat in a chair near me and tearfully begged me not to press charges. “My son,” she said, “is not this kind of boy. Please don’t let this ruin his life”.

Her tears aroused sympathy in me, and for just a few seconds, I thought of how she must have felt, and considered her wishes. But I looked back at Kyle, and all the anger roared back into my heart and I looked her straight in the eye.

“Your son IS this kind of boy. He did do this.”

We sat there, the six of us in silence for the next couple of minutes. Two policemen, the principal, Julie, Kyle, and me. Then one of the officers asked me if there was anything else I’d like to say. All I could think of was that I wanted to talk to this kid. I wanted to see him. I wanted to try and understand.

He was brought into the room and my jaw was clenched. He was big – close to six feet tall, and quite husky. He was wearing a letter jacket and a sheepish look. I couldn’t tell if that look represented shame, or merely frustration at having been caught.

It took me a minute to collect my thoughts, but I finally spoke to him.

“You’re a good-looking kid. I’ll bet you are quite popular.” It came out as more of a question. He shook his head yes. “Lots of friends?” Again the head shook yes. “Good for you.”

“Let me tell you something. My son might be gay, but you’ll never be half the man he is.”

This caught his attention and he looked up at me, slightly startled that I would say such a thing. I continued.

“You are a coward. Kyle is not ashamed of who he is. I can only hope that you’re ashamed of who you are.”

It was one of my finer moments.

I mention the fact that this kid’s mother was heavily involved in the LDS church – not to disparage the church or its teachings. I mention it because, sadly, religion is often inexplicably a conduit for judgment and hatred. I have no doubt that “Julie Smith” would never have outwardly encouraged her son to do what he did. However, if you, as a religious, spiritual person, ever say, “we don’t believe in that” to your child (or congregation) without adding, “but we should never judge or criticize those who do”, then you are sending the wrong message.

It’s time to change that message.

Kyle survived the incident amazingly. I’m sure it left some scars, but he has continued these last several years without changing who he is. He inspires me.

The football player was charged with a hate crime. It was his senior year in high school and he wasn’t allowed to participate in any more sports, and spent six months on house arrest. I hope he learned something. I wonder.

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NOTE: Gay Lynn’s son, Kyle, recounts his version of this story in his video story with IFD. Check it out here.

by Zach

The rather large, chalk-white pill looked up at me from my palm as I poured a glass of water; it made taking the pill easier.

A migraine, and a pill to fix it, and a day I missed school one December in my junior year. You had that tired, annoyed face on; the same face you always had when we were together, alone, and the coming light of another crimson dawn danced into the wrinkles of your face as you sat with that fatigued scowl. That face made the thought of what I was about to say unbearable; unbearable and insurmountable and unsurvivable. I tilted back, tossed the pill down my throat and drank the water loudly.

I turned to leave that room; I wanted to go hide somewhere, I wanted to be anywhere but in that room, facing you and the inevitable pain that would soon follow me after I said what I had to say. I wanted to hide somewhere and be nowhere.

Nowhere sounded good; it sounded beautiful, really. Maybe nowhere could be somewhere that I escaped to; maybe it could be a place where my brain didn’t work right and it just forgot everything and I could just live with stupid, reckless abandon. It could be more permanent than books and movies and music and alcohol. It would be a nowhere that was very empty and quiet and I could just stay there until forever was over, and then stay a few days after that. But it’s impossible to find nowhere, and I guess I’m doomed to always be somewhere. And in this somewhere, you were sitting with that sad, tired look, and the dawn was proceeding and changing into flax-golden rays of light, and your eyes reflected with their gooseberry shine.

The migraine still hurt; the pill hadn’t started working yet, and every inch of me trembled with fear. Nowhere would have to wait.

“Mom, I need to tell you something…”

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by Teri Yoshiuchi

One Saturday my mom and I went downtown to Scandinavia House to see a movie. My mom is a member there (she’s Swedish on her mother’s side, which makes me a quarter Swede) and with her light hair and eyes she fits in rather well. Since my dad is Japanese, my dark hair, dark eyes and Asian features are quite a contrast. I’m sure we make for an odd looking pair. As it happens, Scandinavia House is next door to the Kitano Hotel so there were a number of Japanese tourists having lunch in the dining room, but I digress.

The main floor has a dining area and a gift shop, but they have an auditorium downstairs that regularly shows imported films from Scandinavian countries. To date we have gone to see three fantastic films, but this story is about one in particular. My mom asked me if I wanted to go see “The Man Who Loved Yngve” (“Mannen som elsket Yngve”) which is an award-winning film from Norway. It is about a boy… and the boy he falls in love with. The potential for awkwardness was off the charts, but how could I possibly say no?

The movie is set in 1989 and follows 17-year-old Jarle who seems to have a pretty awesome life. He has a great girlfriend, a loving mother and is the lead singer in a punk band called Mattias Rust Band that he started with his best friend. However, everything starts to change when a new boy joins their school and Jarle finds himself inexplicably attracted to him. Although he cannot understand the feelings he has, all he can do is try to get closer to Yngve, which means listening to pop music and trying to learn how to play tennis. Eventually things come to a head and Jarle is forced to make a choice between his budding relationship with Yngve and his girlfriend.

I was a little afraid that I might have to sit through some boy-on-boy love scenes while sitting next to my mom (awkward!), but fortunately the only love scenes were boy-on-girl, which was something of a relief. Quite frankly I never thought I would ever say such a thing.

It was an amazing movie and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I have no idea when it might be released in the US (if ever), but I would love to own it on DVD. The music throughout the movie was mostly 80’s hits which is another automatic plus in my book. My mom liked it a lot as well and we talked about it at length over a late lunch at Smorgas Chef, the restaurant at Scandinavia House. I always get their seafood chowder, A+.

When we left, my mom asked:

“Was our waiter gay?”

“Uhhh… yes, I’m pretty sure he was… why?”

“Yeah, I thought so. Especially after the way I saw him checking you out when we left.”

I love my mom. She’s awesome. I don’t think I could ask for better parents.

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