kerrylaughs

When I initially moved back to Dallas, I moved in with my Mom while looking for a new house.  Now that Ed had his assignment to Dallas we knew we could put down roots. When Ed got to Dallas, it was actually a heady time.  Ed and I had always lived together in very insular communities and never known any other gay people.  Moving to a city like Dallas, for the first time our social circle did not have to be the same as our work circle.  We began meeting gay people and found other committed couples with children.  It was great to have conversations with others about topics we had always had to keep between the two of us.  We became actively involved in a Gay Parents group and, after a while, hosted the monthly meetings at our home. We also became active in a gay assimilation group at our church, the Holy Trinity Catholic Church.  Our group at Holy Trinity was really important to us but when leadership at the diocese changed our group was essentially thrown out.  Between Ed and I we have 28 years of Catholic education but haven’t entered a Catholic church since then.  Our son John initially came to visit us on weekends and, after a couple of years, his mother outed us to John.  He now understood why I was always around and he approached Ed about coming to live with us. We looked forward to John coming but made one caveat.  We insisted that if John was going to come to live with us it was through high school graduation.  My Mom also became very involved in our social lives.  Thirty years ago, things were very different.  Many of our new gay friends had been disowned or kicked to the curb by their families.  My Mom adopted them all and they loved her back for it.  As we approached out 10th Anniversary, we talked to a priest we knew (also gay and involved in our church) about blessing our relationship.  He told us he was not allowed to bless us but he would bless our house.  I’m embarrassed to say we agreed to that.  Today we would have shown him to the door.  As John approached his high school graduation and Ed approached his retirement from the Air Force, I was transferred to Rhode Island to begin a National Training School.  John graduated from High School and joined the Navy.  Ed retired from the Air Force and drove to Rhode Island to where I was already settling in.