Thoughts of a Gay Parent

The boyfriend and I spent a wonderful evening having dinner with my two daughters tonight in honor of my oldest daughter's birthday - she turned 27 last week - and once again I could not help but believe that all the pain and suffering of being in the closet for so many years was worth it in order to have my wonderful children. My son lives in the Pacific Northwest now, so he has not had the opportunity to spend as much time with the boyfriend as my girls have, but I am blessed that they seem to love him and he loves all three of them very much.

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We met at a Mexican restaurant near the Lesner Bridge in Virginia Beach just a few miles east of the the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel near my parent's former neighborhood of Bay Lake Pines (the photo above is of a sunrise over the bridge tunnel as it heads across the Bay from Virginia Beach) . A combination of great conversation, good food and some excellent margaritas made for a great time. While my coming out later in life was not something easy for my children to deal with in many ways, I truly believe that they can now see that I am a far happier person and more loving father than I was during the years I was wracked with self-hate and trying so desperately to convince myself that I wasn't really gay. I wasted so much energy and missed so many opportunities to be a better father because I was so wrapped up in tying to "change" rather than simply be who God made me to be. I hope that if they learn nothing else from me it is that they must live their own lives to be who they are and not what they perceive others to want them to be.

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God made each of us to be a unique gift and we need to stop living to please others and instead live to our full potential as unique God given gifts to the world. Would that more people - especially alleged Christians - would not second guess God's creative genius and sense of diversity. I thank God for my children, the boy friend and the gift of being gay.