Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [86]
The tragedy stayed with Joe, and he wondered whether he would have had the courage to do anything differently had the youth approached him. Now there were still kids out there struggling with their sexual identity, and there was a chance to do something to help them. Joe and Con joined Mary’s chapter. They became regulars, helping keep Mary organized and serving as her favorite role models for parents newly wondering what gay life was about.
Mary’s role was unique in P-FLAG in that she was at once a counselor and a symbol. No matter how distraught parents who came to the meetings might be, no matter how guilty, angry, or bitter, they could look at Mary and be reminded that, as bad as they believed things to be, they still had their child. Mary was anointed by her tragedy—a living, vibrant argument for good sense and reconciliation.
In a way she was her story, and she used it to nurture desperate families and children back to reason and love.
Jenny and Jim Spinello lived a contented middle-class existence in Alamo, California, ten miles south of Walnut Creek. Jim Sr. was a civil engineer, and he and his wife shared a tolerant view of individual differences. Then they accidentally discovered a love poem from their son, Jim Jr., to another man. Jim, twenty-four, had never dated much, and Jenny and Jim Sr. had allowed themselves some suspicions, but with their discovery of the poem there were no doubts left.
Jim Jr. was living at home at the time, but was spending the night at a friend’s. Jenny called him. “Jim, you need to be here tomorrow night. There’s something we have to talk about.”
Jenny spent an anguished night. When her husband left for work before dawn, she collapsed into hysterical weeping. She desperately phoned a county help line and was given Mary’s number.
Mary listened calmly to Jenny’s rantings and then told her her story. Jenny listened tearfully. When Jim Sr. came home, she related what Mary had told her.
“Whatever happens,” the elder Spinello said, “we will not lose our son over this.”
Jim Jr. arrived home and Jenny confronted him with the poem. “Yes, I’m gay,” he acknowledged. “I was going to tell you this weekend. Now that you know, you should know I’ve met somebody special and I’m in love for the first time in my life.”
Something cracked in Jenny. She began shouting. “How could you do this? Do you know what you are doing, with all this AIDS out there and everything else in the world? What are people going to say?” Jim Jr. was stunned. He had expected his mother to be supportive. They had been a close and loving family. For a moment he had the surreal feeling that Jenny would throw him out or stalk out herself.
But his father was firm. “We will get through this,” he insisted. “We don’t want to lose you, Jim.” He turned to his wife. “Jenny, we are not going to lose our son over this.”
Jenny cried all night. The next morning she called Mary again and arranged to see her immediately. Mary’s low-key response calmed her somewhat, and she agreed to come to the next P-FLAG meeting. There, she met other mothers and other sons. The boys looked like her idea of normal kids, not stereotypes, and that reassured her.
Jenny became a regular. Soon her son and husband joined her in attending meetings. It took her six months to work through the heartbreak and shame. Gradually, she “came out” to her closest friends and was amazed at how accepting they were.
Throughout the Spinello family’s struggle, Mary’s presence was key. She remained nonjudgmental, no matter how angry or emotional Jenny or the others would get. She explained that sexuality was not a choice, relieving Jenny’s guilty feeling that somehow she was responsible. She explained that it was not gay children that were wrong, it was society. Mary helped her understand that their struggle was not the end of the world. She provided perspective.
And when Jenny would feel most sorry for herself, or most alienated from her son, she would remember Mary. Jenny