Our Son Led Us…

Three little, tiny words changed our lives. "I am gay." Our youngest son said those words to us when he was sixteen.

We were so ignorant. We were so unaware of what that meant when he said them that we were devastated and filled with a grief that is hard to explain.

We spent the first months grieving for the dreams we had for our dear son. Phil and I shared such a wonderful marriage and family. In our ignorance, we wanted that same life for all of our children. When Jake told us he was gay, we thought he would live a life alone without a family. That thought brought tears that didn’t want to quit.

We didn’t know where to go for advice or help. We knew where the church stood, and it was hard to even walk in to a church during this time. We did seek out a clergy friend, and he told us Jake could change. He told us he knew many that had done that through therapy. Our next stop was the medical community.

The reaction there was to love Jake as he was, and if we needed help accepting him, then we should seek therapy. Our problem wasn’t accepting Jake; it was understanding how best to fight all the discrimination he now faced and how we, as his parents, could learn to understand homosexuality.

We read books. I spent more time in bookstores in those months than I have any other time in my life. I devoured book after book. Many of the books shared family stories and that is what I needed to read. They reached out to me and gave me the hope I needed to get our life back.

But what was most extraordinary was our son, Jake. He was so loving and patient with us as we searched our hearts and minds for the right path to take as a family. He led us to work to make life better for all in the gay community. We watched him start the first gay/straight alliance at his high school. We watched him visit with friends about what it meant to be gay. We watched him reach out to others that needed a kind voice.

A parent is suppose to lead a child, but our son led us. He taught us how important it was to work for change. He taught us to spend our energy and time on making life better for him by educating ourselves and others. There is a great deal of misunderstanding concerning this issue.

This has become a journey for us as parents. We have met so many wonderful people on our way to fully understanding and loving our son. The gay community is remarkable. Its members are treated horribly by the church and society, yet they continue to live with grace and love. We realized we didn’t really understand the word grace until we saw it in action time and time again in the lives of our new friends.

I wouldn’t have missed this journey. It has given me joy beyond measure. It has given me a passion that I didn’t know existed in my soul. It has given me many new friends to love.

Someone asked me, if you could snap your fingers and make Jake straight, would you? It is a hard question to answer. The initial response would be, "Yes," because life is much easier that way. But, that doesn’t take into consideration the whole picture. Jake is gay. Jake always was gay and that is part of what makes Jake gifted in so many areas. I see those same gifts in many of our new friends. Jake’s "gayness" is a part of what we have grown to love in him throughout his life. It is so much a part of Jake that I would not want to take that away.

I am bursting with pride in my son. He lives with amazing dignity in the face of discrimination. I want to thank him for taking us on the journey of our lives. I want to thank him for teaching us what it truly means to love as Jesus loved. I want to thank him for teaching us how important it is to work for acceptance and equal rights for all. I want to thank him for the love he shows in all he does every day he walks this earth. No one has more pride in her heart than this mom for her gay son.

Randi Reitan

Back to Stories

© Copyright 2003 Rainbow Communications.. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
If you have any questions or comments about the way this site functions, E-mail us.
This site is optimized for Internet Explorer 6.0