Chapter 1 - Through A Son's Eyes

Me

We all have the stories from our childhood which define us; our first bike, first game system, best friends. For these commonplace memories I am no different – but I also have the memories which set me apart.

My mother was a great mom. She always tried to be the best wife, the best mom and the best person she could be and she was truly a good person; the kind of good most people can only aspire to. She was born in 1957 and passed away on December 16, 2009; a too-short life that never had a chance to be normal.

She grew up in the wilds of Ontario, following her forest ranger father into remote areas. He was an abusive alcoholic, and most of her days were spent trying to stay as far away from the house as possible. This was her daily life until she was able to move in with an aunt at the age of 16, after the death of her mother. For a time she was able to live normally, through the years as she grew, married my father and became a mother of two. And then again, her world was torn from under her.

Where do I start? It’s hard to remember my life from before. Everywhere I go, everything I do, everyone I see constantly reminds me of the life I wanted but never got to live. My depression and anxiety affect not only me, but the friends and family around me. I’ve been actively seeking answers since I was 13 and find that now, at 29, the more knowledge and wisdom I gain only confuses me more. I wish every day that I could wave a magic wand and release the pain this has caused me and my family; instead we can only struggle through, day by day.

I thought my life was fairly normal. I grew up in British Columbia, close to my mother’s older sister. My father owned a small painting company which went under when I was 9, prompting our family to move to Ontario. My parents fought a lot, but that was just the way things were. In 1994, when I was 12 years old something changed and we had to move in with my aunt and uncle in BC. I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know what, only that I had to help pack our lives into the car and drive across the country. About two months after we arrived in BC we were able to move into a place of our own and my little sister and I found a suitcase full of women’s clothes that we didn’t recognize. Mom caught us going through them and gave us heck, but the matter was dropped. A month or so later I found a pair of silk boxers hanging from a chair in my parents’ room and something clicked in my head. Could it be? No, my dad couldn’t be wearing women’s clothes. Could he? I somehow got the nerve to ask my mom about it, and she was shocked, but hastened to assure me that I was mistaken, so I didn’t think anything more of it. As they say, ignorance is bliss, and for another year my dear mother’s efforts kept me in that bliss. Unfortunately, it couldn’t last.

A year or so after we moved out of my aunt and uncle’s house my father gathered our whole family into the living room of our small basement suite. I had recently lost my Grampa and remember being scared that someone else in the family had died. Instead, as my mother sat silent, he pulled out his bible and read us the following verse:

John 7:53-8:11

7:53 And every man went unto his own house.
8:1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
8:2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
8:3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
8:4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
8:5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
8:6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8:8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
8:9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
8:10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

I guess he was hoping to convince us to keep an open mind before he dropped the bombshell on us. He told us that he had spent his entire life knowing that something about him wasn’t right and feeling as though he truly wanted to be a woman. He began crying as he explained that he had convinced himself that, by marrying a woman, having a family and leading a ‘normal’ life, it would go away and he could be happy living his life as a man. He had always been a hard man, disciplining us with the belt and with hours spent writing lines, yet now he sat before me, weeping and just repeating that he was sorry.

I was so shocked that I couldn’t even wrap my head around what he was saying. I had laughed at these stories when they were on the Jerry Springer Show, and now here he was telling me that I was one of those people. I certainly wasn’t laughing any more. From that point on, my life changed. I couldn’t accept what he had told me and I hid from the world. I would take off on my bike and spend hours crying in secret. The usual trauma of simply being 13 already had me hating my life, and now I found that everything I’d thought I knew was wrong. My universe had crumbled and I didn’t know where to start trying to rebuild it. It really screwed me up, and it was a revelation that I would never fully recover from.