by: Clemintine VonRadics

I did not turn your daughter gay. She was like that when I found her. More to the point: I’m deeply troubled  by your faith in a God that asks you to sacrifice your love of your child in order to best serve him.  When God asked that of Abraham it turned out he was only kidding.You should hear the way she talks about you. Her mouth holds the words the way hands hold baby birds. Her love for you is fragile, it is injured, it is something she desperately needs to live. The night you told her she no longer had a home, I held her while she sang your praises. She said  you used to sing her to sleep every night, no matter how long it took. I listened, and tried  to imagine this from the woman who demonized two teenage girls. Who called my mother a bitch during a PTA meeting. I tried to imagine this great war within your soul between what you know is right  and what has been told to you, but to be honest I think if you continue to choose your God over your daughter, you don’t deserve her in the first place.

Listen: I came to her broken. She had the patience of a saint. She put me back together. That girl is a gift to the rest of us. She deserves a mother she doesn’t have to lie to in order to be loved, a mother who would take her in her arms, and say “I’m so proud of you, my darling. You deserve every joy this world has to give you.”

But then again maybe you, Her mother, deserved a life free of the burden of all that morality. Maybe she is right, and the way you cut her out cut you in half.

Years have passed since all this went down.  Wherever you are now, I hope the time has been good to you. I hope you’ve learned all the ways this world can change. Even if you still hate me, for what it’s worth I believe you are good. You raised a daughter with a heart that beats more often than a hummingbird’s and eyes that can’t  see the faults in those of us lucky enough to be loved by her. So I believe in your goodness because she does. You are always looking up, she is looking straight at you.