Harrison's Father Disowns Him

 I agonized over whether to publish this, because it is rather personal, but of course I have changed his name; I publish this anonymously; he was pretty open about it himself; and, well, there seems to be a valuable lesson here, and that is: This shit still happens! 
If "Harrison" ever finds this, I hope he will forgive me.


A few days ago, a gay friend of mine, Harrison, posted this on Facebook:

"The thing about the fight for legal protections under the law that I'm not sure I've heard anyone acknowledge is that the fight is not actually about legality at its core.
The real fight is one of ideology.
But because one person can not change the mind of another, we must fight to change the things we've made.
Instead of convincing a father who sees no point in affording his child the same opportunities as any other person, regardless of what the child's genitals are, which gender they identify as, or who they end up loving or not loving, we must change the law so that people of the same mind as that father are prevented from exercising their hatred within the bounds of the law.
So instead of wasting our energy trying to convince people that we are human beings in the face of people who have already made up their mind, we put our energy into making sure there is a piece of paper somewhere that affords us the rights of one."

This wasn't the first similar post on the subject, and I have already detailed how he gave an awesome and brilliant answer to a "loving" but homophobic mutual friend. I liked his post and replied thusly: 

"I think that after a few years of marriage equality, a lot of people will see that the world hasn't ended, and they'll be affirming or at least more open to others' points of view. Not all, of course."

About a minute later, I thought of something else, and added this: 

 "The ones I'm really worried about are their children."

A few hours later, he posted this: 

  "I'll try to make it more real for you next time."
My reply to my father after I lost my composure and he told me we weren't in acting practice. Except there probably won't be a next time."

I responded:

"Oh, God. I'm sorry."

 I had tried to think of something else to say, but I couldn't, so I left it at that, figuring that it should be short and sweet, rather than saying something that tries to help him feel better, but doesn't. 
Then I got worried. A thought occurred to me, so I private-messaged him. Here is our conversation:

"Will this affect your living situation, Harrison? Do you need a place to stay?"

 "No, my mother and father have been divorced all my life. I live with my mother. Thank you, though."

 "Glad to hear it. You don't deserve this crap. You're great."

 "Thank you."

I had not consulted with my parents, whom I live with, but I knew that it was almost certainly okay with my mom, and probably okay with my dad, especially if I told him that Harrison reminded me a lot of my little brother, Cody. I had a little bit of money saved to put him in a motel, at the very least. It was late at night, but I was not adverse to waking my mother and the two of us going to get him (because she certainly wouldn't let me go to town at one a.m. by myself). 
I racked my brain, trying to think of something to say to him. About twenty minutes later, I messaged him again: 

"Hey Harrison, you going to be at the next GSA* meeting? Because it just occurred to me that I didn't get a chance to give you your going-away/birthday present for your upcoming trip.** There's also an essay I wrote for acting class, about your performance in the last play, that I think you might want to see."

 (*Gay-Straight Alliance club at my school. It's meeting during the summer too.)
 (**He had applied to be in a show out of state. I didn't know if he had been successful, but I had already bought the present, a nice pin, which had only been a few dollars for me anyway, and I thought he deserved it anyway, for trying.)

"When is it?" he asked. 

I told him the time next week. 

"I think I can swing that, yeah."

 "Good. Because none of the great things I said about you is untrue. :) <3" 

 "Hahaha, thank you so much. You are a very supportive person."

I didn't know whether I should tell him this, but I decided to risk it:

"I've had..."complicated" relationships with some of my relatives too. It grieves me that it happened to you, too. I just hope you know you're not alone. I can come over sometime if you wish, or we can talk, or I'll just let you be alone, whichever you think is best for you."

I had agonized over that last sentence. I can't offer to come over! I thought. That is so overbearing and smothering! But...that's me. I have to be me. 

He took a while to answer, and when he did, it was much like I expected: 

"I deal best when I have time to talk to myself."

I thought, Of course he doesn't want me around, because he thinks I'm TOO supportive--that I'm smothering him!...But at least, I've said it. At least he knows.  

At least he knows.

"Me too, most of the time." I replied.

"I really need to try to sleep, though." He hinted. 

I was apprehensive about disturbing him any further, though I thought I should let him know that I wasn't going to disturb him any further. 

"Good night. Over and out."

 "You too!"

 I didn't know how he felt about that conversation, but he rarely replied to me last, much less used an exclamation point, so I figured that I might just have helped, after all. Now he knew that someone out there thought he was great, while knowing full well that he liked boys, and he had a few days to look forward to reading about how great he was. I hoped my little essay wouldn't disappoint him.

Burning with curiosity now, I looked on Harrison's Facebook page, where I had previously seen his father listed. His father was not there. 
So I looked on Harrison's brother's Facebook page. His father was there. 
So I looked on Harrison's father's Facebook page. 
Harrison was not there. He only acknowledged his other son. 
I had looked there before. I knew that Harrison had been there, before. I felt physically sick.

After trying to go to bed, I lay awake a long time, and then it hit me: In the first post, he was talking about his own father! 
And furthermore, I was talking about him, when I said that I was worried for "their" children. I had had no idea! 
I remembered, only a week before, I had been amused to find out that Harrison had exactly 365 Facebook friends--one for every day of the year. After he published an earlier post, indirectly knocking down our homophobic friend, "Ruth," it showed that he only had 364. I didn't know whom he had unfriended (or who had unfriended him), but it was not our homophobic friend, interestingly enough. 
That night, it had been down to 362. And now I knew who one of them was. It had never occurred to me to check to see if it was his own family. 

I worry sometimes about whether my little brother, Cody, whom Harrison so much reminds me of, will also have to deal with a parent's rejection, because of the way his father and stepmother act. Recently, his stepbrother had to come live with them, because, as Cody told it, his stepmother's common-law ex-husband was yelling, "I don't want to see you ever again!" and cursing his son, and calling him names, after a major fight. 
"You know we'll never be like that, right?" I asked him the next time he came over. "You know we'll never be like, 'I never want to see you again' or anything like that to you?" 
"Yeah...?" he gave me a really confused, almost disdainful look, as if I had said something as obvious and unimportant as, "You know we're breathing right now, right?" 
I was very comforted by the fact that he looked at me like I was a moron. 

My dad literally gets up at 3:30 a.m. to work out. I was still up then, still wound up, writing this piece, because I wasn't going to sleep anyway (I had actually had to turn my computer back on). 
So I went out to the kitchen, where he was feeding the dogs, and hugged him and told him I loved him. I explained the situation, and said how glad I was that he and my mother weren't like that. 
"That I'd never disown you?" he asked. 
"Or Cody." 
He didn't seem to know what to say, because he's not much for talking, and it was very awkward to say those things to him, but tonight was a night to Just Say It. And I'm glad I did.

As far Harrison goes, I was homeschooled from fifth grade on, and I often feel like I was never schooled on the rules of making and relating to friends. I feel like everyone else in the world has a guidebook for this very thing, and I don't. Most of all, I was so scared of seeming "needy" or "too clingy." 
Sometimes it's hard to tell what crosses the line between "helpful" and "smothering," but...what choice do we have? 

Which side do we want to err on? 

That is the question. 

I learned a valuable lesson that night. "Which side to err on?" is one of the most important questions in life, one of the most valuable things to keep in mind, and one we all too often miss, in our efforts to, at all costs, not look "bad."
I only hope I can retain this lesson. Maybe then I would not be so insecure about what my friends thought of me. This is something that I will strive to take to heart from now on.