Mother update

I spoke to my mother again last week. Turns out she’s not evangelical — she calls her faith “reformed Calvinist” instead. So there’s a quick fact check for you.

Well, let me back up. Week before last, on Thursday, one week before the Thanksgiving holiday, I was just settling in to knit a row while my code did its thing when my phone rang. It was next to me; I looked down and was shocked to see my mother’s face. I picked up immediately. She was on her best behavior — apologetic for calling, offering to talk to someone else in my family if I’d prefer. I knew something was wrong, and so I told her to just go ahead with her news.

My grandmother had just been diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer. They were saying she might not make it to Thanksgiving. I told Mom that I’ll do what I can to come out there, and she was surprised but relieved. Long story short, my Dad paid for my plane tickets and hotel and rental car so I could go out and say goodbye.

I didn’t think about the part where all three of my aunts and both my brothers would of course be there. None of my cousins, though. That was strange.

She perked right up when I came to see her, and fought hard to tell me that she loved me. I replied that I love her too, and we both cried. I stayed three days and she passed away two days after I left.

But the night before I left, I talked to my Mom about us, about faith, about religion. She says the most important thing isn’t to be happy, nor to live a good life, but to be obedient to God. She says that the only thing that matters is the afterlife, that all our striving in this life is meaningless. That if I don’t convert I’ll go to hell, and she can’t just not believe that. I can’t believe in that theology anymore, it’s too toxic and too harmful. So we agreed that we can’t really be in each others’ lives.

I tried to ask her, if I did form a relationship with Jesus, would that be the end of it or would she then expect me to detransition, abandon my spouse — both my spouses, actually, since Jade’s transitioned now and that’d be gay if I detransitioned but she didn’t — and change my whole way of living.

She dodged the question. Three times.

Rowan was there for the conversation and now has a burning hatred for the woman based on the way she hurt me, but I knew it was coming. It felt right, somehow, that I give it an honest try, that I explain the way I see things and hear out the way she sees them when we’re not both angry with each other.

After we stopped talking I went in to say goodbye to my grandmother, and my aunt was there (the cool one, not the religious one or the one who never shows up to things). She hugged me tightly, said she understood (she had heard the whole conversation from the next room) and that she and her sisters knew what kind of person my mother was and they all accept me. I don’t know if I believe that my religious aunt accepts me, but the cool aunt also said that my grandmother accepts me and I want to believe that, so I’m keeping an open mind.

I gave my aunt my email address and told her we should start having family reunions so we can see each other more often. But I don’t know if it’ll happen.

I told my Mom that if she ever needed me, I would come. That I still love her. But I can’t change who I am for her, and it’s hurtful that she’d even want that.

So that’s my update.