MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME. ...

My Mother

MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME....

This is the only picture I have of my mother. It sits on my night stand and wishes me "Good Night" every night. 

My mother died at the age of 58. I was a college girl, already married, with a girl of my own. My writing will not do justice to a woman, who taught me not only how to be a woman; she taught me what society is still struggling to understand. She was way ahead of her time. I learned about the homophobic communist world we lived in at the time when other girls were playing with dolls.  She used simple language to explain the complexities of life. We had conversations about homophobia - a forbidden word [even today] in the vocabulary of many. 

My mother taught me never to mock people who look physically or mentally not well. "Respect everyone! Help everyone as much as you can!" She said. "Life has a way of changing. Tomorrow, you may be in their shoes."

With both parents working in the medical field, I remember plenty of stories about diseases, life and death. Five decades ago, we had our talks about mental diseases, stigma, discrimination of gay population and mentally sick.... What settled in my brain forever were conversations about gay patients, who had to hide their sexuality from their parents and friends until their death. 

One had to be a soldier of society. Everyone had to wear the same uniform for the outside word... That was the law of that land.

My mother taught me that people do not choose to be gay or straight. She did not go into a medical explanation, but I learned that it was not like picking a pastry in a candy shop -- today you pick a piece of chocolate cake, tomorrow -- a pineapple upside down cake.  

You are who you are. 

One of the doctors, who worked with her at the hospital, was gay. His family did not want to know he was even alive. Mom decided I was smart enough to understand how difficult his life was. Now that I think back, she really took a big chance at explaining all of this to me.

I took it all in.