GAY

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight… I wish I was not gay.”

Twenty-nine-year-old Martin first stated that childish rhyme at the age of ten. Today, all these years later, he still whispers this as if a change would be, could be, made.

“You see,” he tells me, “it’s been a rough journey. Sure I’ve accepted the inevitable, but I still would rather be hetero.

“Like many, I knew that I was different from an early age. Of course, I was terrified at the prospect. I actually recall clutching a stuffed toy and sucking my thumb as I thought about this all. At that time, the word, “queer” was popular and several classmates picked up on some aura I must have been giving off. They called me “queer” and “faggot,” and I began to hate myself.

“No child wants to be different, to be ostracized. It was horrible. And then came the day I overheard my older sister talking to my mom. She was telling her that I was gay and that we needed to talk about it. Mom was near hysterics and cried out, “No one in the family is like that. Marty will not be the first.”

Martin smiles a pained half-smile as he recalls that conflict… As we sat face to face, I felt my stomach sour. “I loved when she said, ‘is like that.’ She couldn’t even say, ‘homosexual.’ In the long run, Sarah was my savior.”

Martin Andrews and I are second cousins. We’ve only recently connected as his homosexuality put a wedge in our families.

“Yeah,” I told Martin. “I was a teenager when my parents told me. They might as well have been saying you were a serial killer…it was such a big deal. We had a family meeting and my brother stood up and said, ‘You’re all pathetic,’ and left the kitchen. Dad looked somber as he spoke and mom was crying.

“Don’t you think that it doesn’t matter?” I asked. He’s a person, he’s family and frankly he’s one of the coolest people I know. Marty is smart and personable and has a great sense of humor.” I also left the kitchen after saying my piece.

“Mom called out after me, ‘But he’s a homosexual!

“Living four states away didn’t help our relationship, did it? I went off to college, you were working on Wall Street and we grew distant. I hope you didn’t think that I bought into my folks’ ignorance?”

“Actually, I wasn’t sure how you felt. I always assumed that everyone thought poorly of me…like I woke up and prayed, ‘God make me gay.’” Martin chuckled.

“Sorry,” I responded. “You were talking about being a gay child. Did you tell anyone?”

“When I was about 13, I did talk to Sarah. She hugged me and said that she would always love me, protect me and support me. She knew that our parents dealt with it by threatening to send me to a therapist if I didn’t knock it off. Can you imagine how stigmatized I felt?

“It all came to a crisis point in high school. I was jumped in the locker room by a group of athlete-types. They hit me, striped me and pushed me out in the crowded hallway. I wanted to die. A classmate saw all this, wrapped his coat around me and led me outside. I went home and swallowed a bottle of Aspirin. Long story short, I didn’t die but have stomach issues to this day”

“Dear God, how awful. I’m so sorry Martin.”

“With Sarah’s help, I home-schooled, wanting nothing more than to get into a decent college and move on. You and I finally connected and the rest is history.

 “I’m dating a guy named Don whom I really like. He’s a colleague of mine and we are getting along really well. I am in therapy and starting to make some progress in learning to like myself.

“You of all people know what it’s like to be different…

“Are you ever going to come out?”