Failh,Love&Acceplance

by Bill Lippert

n 1973, I came to Vermont for
the first time, hiked on the Long
Trail and climbed Camel’s Hump
with my parents and my two broth-
ers. I had only come out to a few
friends, and was not yet out to any-
one in my family. A year later, I
would struggle with telling my
parents I was gay. It would be
another five years before my
youngest brother would come out
as well.
Not in my wildest dreams
could I have imagined then that
twenty-nine years later, following

._ my mother’s death, I would sit
with twelve other Lippert family

members as guests of the Central
Pennsylvania PF LAG (Parents &
Friends of Lesbians and Gays)
monthly meeting, as PFLAG mem-
bers took the time to pay special
tribute to my mother. For seven

years. as a PFLAG board member, A

moderator of their monthly meet-
ing, and an active member of the
PF LAG Speaker’s Bureau, my
mother had had a powerful impact
through sharing her life and telling
her “story,” as she liked to call it.

- H . ,, ,.Raised in the conserva-
tive Mennonite Brethren in Christ
church, my mother had moved
through her own personal journey,
opening her heart and mind, along
with my father, to embrace a
diverse family she had not known
she would have. Coming out pub-
licly as the parents of two gay sons
would happen only alter my
father’s retirement from the active
ministry. But as she said in a pub-
lic meeting a few years ago, “My
husband and I have two gay sons.
We have been doubly blessed!”

My mother’s unwavering
commitment to her church and her
Christian faith, combined with her
equally unwavering love and pride
for all of her children, gay and
straight,’ provided a powerful anti-
dote to homophobia for other
members of PFLAG. To all my
mother gave her unconditional

welcome and approval.

Tears of love and pride
for my mother rolled down my
face. as I heard story after personal
story of the important role my
mother’s life had played in helping
someone else’s parents, or some-
one else’s lesbian daughter or gay
son, to find hope and wholeness.

I am reminded that some-
times it is the little things that say
it all.

‘Two and a half years ago,

my father, a United,Methodist min-‘ ’

ister, died following a long illness.
Several hundred people from
parishes all over central

 

i To all my mother gave her
unconditional welcome and

Pennsylvania would gather at my
parents’ church to worship and to
honor and remember my father’s
ministry and life. \

As with so many things,
Mom took charge of the details,
including the written program for
what would otherwise be a tradi-
tional religious, United Methodist
memorial service. One thing, how-
ever, would not be quite so tradi-
tional. In the printed memorial
service program, my mother listed
all of my father’s surviving family
members: my mother, my sister
Mary and her husband, Don; me
and my partner, Enrique; my broth-
er Tim and his wife, Sue; and my
youngest brother, Jon, and his part
ner of 20 years, Jeff. »
I For my mother, there was
never any question that all of her
family members who had loved
and cared for my father, and for

. her, would be publicly listed and

acknowledged. When someone

approval.

commented that there would prob-
ably be some folks from Dad’s ear-
lier parishes who might not know
our family included two gay rela-
tionships, she stated simply, “If
they don’t know, it’s about time
that they know!”

So, in February 2002,
when it was our turn as her chil-
dren to plan a memorial service for
my mother, we knew just how she
would want it done. In addition to
our old family favorites, we
included a new, special hymn,
which we understood in recent
years my mother had particularly
come to appreciate: “Help Us
Accept Each Other.”

On this Mother’s Day, I
love, and honor you Mom. I am
proud to be your son. I miss you
and am grateful that so many oth-
ers were also touched by your love
and your life. V

Bill Lippert lives in Hinesburg.

 

Travels With Ma
by Carrie Rampp

Dnly in the past year have I
introduced my mother to my

“real” life. Of course, she has
known I was gay for more than a
decade. But whenever we were
together, I never really shared with
her what my life was really like.

My mother typically vis-
its in marathon-like sessions in
December and July. She comes to
Vermont from Pennsylvania and
stays for three weeks. She just
loves Vermont. Anyone who has
ever had relatives visit knows that
three weeks is a pretty long stretch
 you really have to plan ahead
for success.

For years I had planned
for this time as if it were an intense
vacation, with programming for
every day. Because of this, my
partner Jenn and I, as well as my
mother, are really ,well traveled in
Vermont — you name it, we’ve pret-
ty much done it. I planned every
sort of outing, from Manchester to
Woodstock, to Stowe and St.
Johnsbury, to picnics at Mt. Philo,
outings to every museum or his-
toric site, to visiting the Lippizan
camp on the Champlain Islands.
But what I didn’t do was let my
mother meet my friends.

I was convinced this
would be a terrible idea, that she
would surely be mean to them or
behave in a wildly inappropriate
fashion. So when she was here, she’

only saw me, Jenn, and occasional-

ly my co-workers at Middlebury
College. This left me more and
more frustrated. When she was
here, I had a good time, and I was
happy to see her, but I was always
somewhat angry that I had to
change my whole life around to
accommodate her visit, and that
she really didn’t know what my life
was all about. ‘

But last summer I was
complaining to a friend about this,
likely for about the 20th time, and
he essentially shouted at me — the
issue was really much more about

ME and my feelings about my
mother, he yelled, and much less so
about my mother and how she
would treat my friends. So I
resolved to give it a go. Maybe he
was right, maybe it was ME.

Last summer I took my
mom on all of my regular outings.
We went everywhere with my gay
friends. I took her to parties, con-
certs, had friends over  and
guess what? Everything was totally
fine. She actually liked most of
them. She sometimes said things
that were a little funny, but mostly
because she hadn’t had much expo-
sure to so many out gay people.

Nearly a year later, she
now looks forward to seeing them,
nearly as much as to seeing me.
She’s happy that I’m coming to
visit her in Pennsylvania next
month and bringing along one of
my gay male friends that she likes.
She’s asked me a lot of interesting
questions that we surely wouldn’t
have talked about otherwise —
about civil unions, about why gay
people always seem to be hugging
each other (a very funny question
in my book),"about how I have
managed to meet so many gay peo-
ple, about whether I think this
many gay people live in her neigh-
borhood in Pennsylvania  and so
on and so on. I

So as Mother’s Day
approaches I can’t help but think
how fortunate I’ve been in the past
year. My relationship with my
mother has not only grown closer,
but much more honest. I thought I
had ‘done the “bold” thing when I
shared with my mother that I was
gay, but it wasn’t really until I was
totally honest about my life and
shared with my mother the pebple
who mean the most to me that I
could really say I was completely
“out” to her. So happy Mother’s
Day Ma! I love you so much. V

Carrie. Rampp lives in Leicester.

by Ernie McLeod

We don’t generally get to
choose our mothers, any
more than our mothers get to
choose who we’ll become.
Sometimes, though, I
wonder ... What would it have
been like to have, say, a PFLAG
mom (one hopefully less grating
than the Sharon Gless character on
Queer as Folk)? Or a fundamental-
ist Christian mother? Or a single
mother? Or an adoptive lesbian
mom who, in many locations,
would’ve had no legal right to be
my parent?
’ On the flip side, I wonder

if my mother has imagined me as
another sort of son. Perhaps as a

straight man with a couple of kids
and a penchant for sports, beer, and
boat-sized convertibles. Actually,
she doesn’t have to work hard to
imagine that one since it pretty
much describes my brother.

Fact is, for better or
worse, we’re stuck with one anoth-
er, and — at this point in our lives —
there’s not much room for imagin-
ing what might have been.

It wasn’t always that way.
I imagine for quite a few years
there I kept my mother’s imagina-
tion busy and confused, particularly
on the subject of my sexuality.

_ As I was growing up, she
had eyes. She found clues and —

indirectly, usually — let me know
she’d found them. So, she probably
knew, or at least had some heavy
suspicions.

But then there were those
girlfriends, the ones I took to
proms and the one I remained with
throughout my twenties, the one
who became like a member of the
family. I don’t think my mother
knew that my girlfriend knew
(eventually) that I was gay, but
then again I can’t know for sure
since my mother wasn’t one of
those mothers who inquired. If she
wondered whether I’d marry or
produce grandchildren, she didn’t
do so aloud, in my presence.

Then,- suddenly (or so it
must have seemed to her), I was
spending much less time with the
girlfriend who’d become like a
member of the family and much

more time with a mysterious man
she’d never met. She didn’t ask; I
didn’t tell.

Eventually, she met the
mysterious man, and very gradually
he became far less mysterious. He
became like a member of the fami-
ly.

I had come out without
officially coming out. Not the right
or wrong way to do it, but the way
it worked for us. She got it when
she needed to and (along with my
father) adapted.

How my mother and I
have chosen to deal with - and not
deal with — my sexuality is but one
facet of our relationship. I’m 40; '
she’s in her 70’s. It’s pretty much
off the table. She can worry about
me traveling to weird countries. I
can worry about her being an elder-
ly widow living alone.

Occasionally, the enve-
lope gets pushed, slightly: I men-
tion attending the civil union hear-
ings or warn about a certain “Letter
to the Editor" l‘ve sent to the
hometown newspaper. She men-
tions reading about a woman who’s
adopted kids with her female part-
ner or informs me that one of her
acquaintances has indeed seen my
“Letter to the Editor” and — to her
surprise — declared it right-on. If
my mother can learn to do e-mail,
anything is possible.

I’d wish her a Happy
Mother’s Day here, but she doesn’t
read Out in the Mountains. As far
as I know. V

Ernie McLeod communicates. (or
doesn ‘t) with his mom from
Montreal. You can reach him at
mcleod@middlebury. edu.