He had a sense, watching that show, that something in his family was not right, but he didn't know what and didn't have the vocabulary to put this feeling, this vague unease, into words. What he learned was that some families are nice to each other, and love each other, and care about each other. And some families don't. So sometimes, when there were touching scenes on the show, he could not help but hurry away to a place of privacy so he could cry. He didn't know why he was crying, only that some emotion had gripped him, some sadness, some grief he couldn't understand.
This little boy began searching for family. He found it with a Catholic family who lived on the other side of the woods. He played happily with their children. He felt included, respected, wanted, even though he overstayed his welcome a great deal-indeed, he often spent the night with this family as if he were one of their own.
But then something happened. The little boy grew into a young teenager who realized he was gay. And this religious family, this Catholic family that treated him so nicely, had a thing about homosexuality. They didn't like it. Soon, although he tried hard to gain their approval, he found himself not welcomed by this foster family, who eventually moved away. No matter what he did, he could not make them love him again.
He was not sure what his own family would say if he told them about being gay, so he said nothing, but the gayness, the homosexuality, was a deeply bruising, shameful thing he carried with him and could not escape no matter how he tried, how fervent his prayers, who desperate his desire to be normal.
This young teenager grew into a young man who proved himself to be a damaged, unstable individual with emotional problems. He'd always been a sensitive boy, and the terrors of his childhood haunted him-his violent, drunken father, the sexual abuse he experienced, the death of his friend Tommy when he was eight, the death of his father when he was ten, the religious violence he experienced as a convert to a crazy Catholic cult, the harsh feelings of self-loathing and hatred over his homosexuality-oh, it was a toxic brew.
He was quite alone with these terrors. No one in his family seemed to understand him, to understand what was happening, what was wrong. He knew he was an unwanted burden, and when he chanced upon a risky way to escape, he took it. This involved accepting a plane ticket from a gay man in Las Vegas. He'd corresponded with the man, having found his address in the back of a gay magazine. How he found that magazine, he does not remember now. What he remembers is writing to some of the addresses in the personals column, and receiving offers of plane tickets from older gay men who said they would be happy to "help" him. So he accepted the plane ticket and made his escape. He arrived at the airport in Las Vegas feeling very satisfied with himself, that he was now on his own, that he was an adult, was going to survive and not be a burden on anyone anymore.
The man who met him at the airport seemed nice enough, but when they arrived at the man's house and he began to unpack his small suitcase, the man came into his bedroom, forced him to disrobe and proceeded to rape him.
Not knowing what else to do, he wrote to some of the other men he had been corresponding with. Eventually he found himself moving to LA with one of those men, where the scenes repeated themselves. And then one day he found himself thrown out onto the street.
He thought of calling his family and asking for help, but he knew two things: They would not understand. And they would not help. And he knew it was pointless to ask. So he began to walk the streets, looking for someone to help him. Various tribulations awaited him that he does not care to discuss now.
Eventually he met a young traditional Catholic man who promised to help him. He went to live with this young man and his Italian family in Kansas City. They helped him get a job and make a start in life. They loved him like he was one of their own, but he knew he must not divulge his secret. Should they learn of his homosexuality, they would ask him to leave, so he remained silent.
The Italian family tried very hard to love this young man, but he was shy, awkward, terrified of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. He wanted their love so much he could hardly breathe, and he lived in fear he would disappoint them or that they would discover his terrible secret and they would ask him to leave.
He especially loved his Italian mother. Yet he couldn't think what to say to her, what to talk about, how to express his feelings. And soon, because he was so awkward, so quiet, so nervous, so afraid, she concluded that he did not like her and she grew distant.
He then met another family who took him in. An Hispanic family. Because they were traditional Catholics, he tried very hard to be a traditional Catholic to please them even though he no longer believed in it. One day, when he could hold it in no longer, he told them he was gay. Very quickly their friendship ended and he found himself living alone.
In his quest for family, for people who would love him, he took in roommates. They were all young gay men like himself. They made a sort of family. They loved each other as best they could. But since they were all estranged from their own families and full of hurt and shame and confusion about themselves, they did not live happily ever after. They were all lost souls, wounded souls, hurting, prone to addictions and violence.
The years continued on and, in this quest for family, in his late twenties, he married a woman in the belief this would "cure" him of his shameful condition. It did not, and proved to be a terrible mistake. It was very unfair to the woman he married and the child they eventually had.
Knowing he had to divorce her, that she would better with her own family and people and country, he sold everything and moved to that country far, far away. He continued to live there until his child was eighteen.
A much older man now, he returned to his own country and settled down in a small town close to where one of his brothers lived. They were friendly. They did not argue. Yet there was distance between them. They were completely different now and seemed to no longer have any common ground.
His mother lived at some distance away and he finally decided to visit her. The years had cooled his anger, his disappointments, his hurts. He wanted her to know he was okay, he had survived, that he did not cling to the past. They made small talk over lunch. They did not speak about the past. They were basically strangers.
Having spent his life searching for a family of his own, for people who would love him, for people he could love in return, he finally understood this was not meant to be. It was not in the cards. Fate had decided otherwise. Or perhaps it had been homophobia and shame that had decided otherwise, that had kept him at a safe distance, excluded, apart from the normal course of affairs. Or perhaps the family he came from was broken, was composed of broken souls who could never be a proper family no matter how hard they tried. Perhaps they had never learned to love each other. Perhaps they had never learned to forgive, to talk, to work out problems. Perhaps no one had ever told them how important family was. Perhaps they were all disappointed in each other, for their own reasons, in their own ways, and wanted nothing more to do with it. Or perhaps he himself was to blame: perhaps he was still emotionally unstable, unwell, had unrealistic expectations. Perhaps he was not a very nice person. Perhaps he was an embarrassment who didn't know he was an embarrassment. Perhaps he was not the sort of person one enjoyed spending time with.
Recently, as the holidays once more approached, he began to wonder if he would receive an invitation from his brother to spend Thanksgiving dinner with him and his family. In the past, he had invited himself on such occasions, but felt uncomfortable doing this. One year he tried cooking Thanksgiving dinner himself. He invited his brother, but his brother did not come.
Christmas was likewise problematic. He did not want to invite himself to houses where, he suspected, he was not really wanted. Yet previous experience had shown him Christmas would come and go and no invitation would be forthcoming.
Pondering these things, he decided to do nothing. He had learned, the hard way, that you could not force people to love you. It would either happen or it wouldn't. No amount of wishing and hoping would change that fact of life.
He knew also that people who love each other found ways to show it. There were phone calls, visits, cards, letters, Christmas presents, text messages. He looked back on the few calls and letters he had received from his family and realized that perhaps they had other priorities, other interests, that he should not fault them for this, but rather ... do nothing.
So this boy, who once cried while watching sentimental TV shows about nice families, who tried to force other families to adopt him and love him and heal him and include him, who ran far, far away from home looking for love, looking for someone who cared, who could help him make sense of his life—this boy, this unhappy child, this confused adult, this man whose life was marred by devastating self-doubts and self-loathing, this man who tried many times to kill himself because he could not stand the pain of being who he was, the pain of being so alone in the world—this man finally decided to let it go. And to do … nothing.
But before embarking on that path, he wanted to find a way to let people know why he no longer called, no longer visited, no longer seemed to care. He wanted them to know it wasn't their fault, that he realized he was broken in ways no one could fix and that he no longer blamed them for that.
Most of all, he wanted them to know he kept his distance because it was too painful to do otherwise. This, too, he had learned the hard way. There were some people in the world who were toxic poison. No matter how much he loved and cared for them, it was best to stay away if only for his own peace of mind. He had spent far too much time dealing with such people to believe that anything good could come from it. Just the opposite had shown itself to be true. Let sleeping dogs lie. Let the dead bury the dead. He had learned those painful lessons very well.
With the holidays once again fast approaching, he resolved to address the matter once and for all. He sat down and wrote a short story. He addressed envelopes, mailed out copies. He hoped his story would be a way of saying what couldn't be said. He hoped the format of a story would convey more than ordinary words were capable of.
Mostly, he hoped the point of the story would be clear: There are things in the world that, once broken, can never be fixed. Things like children, men, women, yes, but also families and institutions and even foundational relationships like parent-child and brother-brother. Some things, once shattered, can never be put back together, can never again serve their original purpose. They can never again be what they were.
He hoped this understanding, this insight, would eventually comfort them as it had comforted him.
This little boy began searching for family. He found it with a Catholic family who lived on the other side of the woods. He played happily with their children. He felt included, respected, wanted, even though he overstayed his welcome a great deal-indeed, he often spent the night with this family as if he were one of their own.
But then something happened. The little boy grew into a young teenager who realized he was gay. And this religious family, this Catholic family that treated him so nicely, had a thing about homosexuality. They didn't like it. Soon, although he tried hard to gain their approval, he found himself not welcomed by this foster family, who eventually moved away. No matter what he did, he could not make them love him again.
He was not sure what his own family would say if he told them about being gay, so he said nothing, but the gayness, the homosexuality, was a deeply bruising, shameful thing he carried with him and could not escape no matter how he tried, how fervent his prayers, who desperate his desire to be normal.
This young teenager grew into a young man who proved himself to be a damaged, unstable individual with emotional problems. He'd always been a sensitive boy, and the terrors of his childhood haunted him-his violent, drunken father, the sexual abuse he experienced, the death of his friend Tommy when he was eight, the death of his father when he was ten, the religious violence he experienced as a convert to a crazy Catholic cult, the harsh feelings of self-loathing and hatred over his homosexuality-oh, it was a toxic brew.
He was quite alone with these terrors. No one in his family seemed to understand him, to understand what was happening, what was wrong. He knew he was an unwanted burden, and when he chanced upon a risky way to escape, he took it. This involved accepting a plane ticket from a gay man in Las Vegas. He'd corresponded with the man, having found his address in the back of a gay magazine. How he found that magazine, he does not remember now. What he remembers is writing to some of the addresses in the personals column, and receiving offers of plane tickets from older gay men who said they would be happy to "help" him. So he accepted the plane ticket and made his escape. He arrived at the airport in Las Vegas feeling very satisfied with himself, that he was now on his own, that he was an adult, was going to survive and not be a burden on anyone anymore.
The man who met him at the airport seemed nice enough, but when they arrived at the man's house and he began to unpack his small suitcase, the man came into his bedroom, forced him to disrobe and proceeded to rape him.
Not knowing what else to do, he wrote to some of the other men he had been corresponding with. Eventually he found himself moving to LA with one of those men, where the scenes repeated themselves. And then one day he found himself thrown out onto the street.
He thought of calling his family and asking for help, but he knew two things: They would not understand. And they would not help. And he knew it was pointless to ask. So he began to walk the streets, looking for someone to help him. Various tribulations awaited him that he does not care to discuss now.
Eventually he met a young traditional Catholic man who promised to help him. He went to live with this young man and his Italian family in Kansas City. They helped him get a job and make a start in life. They loved him like he was one of their own, but he knew he must not divulge his secret. Should they learn of his homosexuality, they would ask him to leave, so he remained silent.
The Italian family tried very hard to love this young man, but he was shy, awkward, terrified of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. He wanted their love so much he could hardly breathe, and he lived in fear he would disappoint them or that they would discover his terrible secret and they would ask him to leave.
He especially loved his Italian mother. Yet he couldn't think what to say to her, what to talk about, how to express his feelings. And soon, because he was so awkward, so quiet, so nervous, so afraid, she concluded that he did not like her and she grew distant.
He then met another family who took him in. An Hispanic family. Because they were traditional Catholics, he tried very hard to be a traditional Catholic to please them even though he no longer believed in it. One day, when he could hold it in no longer, he told them he was gay. Very quickly their friendship ended and he found himself living alone.
In his quest for family, for people who would love him, he took in roommates. They were all young gay men like himself. They made a sort of family. They loved each other as best they could. But since they were all estranged from their own families and full of hurt and shame and confusion about themselves, they did not live happily ever after. They were all lost souls, wounded souls, hurting, prone to addictions and violence.
The years continued on and, in this quest for family, in his late twenties, he married a woman in the belief this would "cure" him of his shameful condition. It did not, and proved to be a terrible mistake. It was very unfair to the woman he married and the child they eventually had.
Knowing he had to divorce her, that she would better with her own family and people and country, he sold everything and moved to that country far, far away. He continued to live there until his child was eighteen.
A much older man now, he returned to his own country and settled down in a small town close to where one of his brothers lived. They were friendly. They did not argue. Yet there was distance between them. They were completely different now and seemed to no longer have any common ground.
His mother lived at some distance away and he finally decided to visit her. The years had cooled his anger, his disappointments, his hurts. He wanted her to know he was okay, he had survived, that he did not cling to the past. They made small talk over lunch. They did not speak about the past. They were basically strangers.
Having spent his life searching for a family of his own, for people who would love him, for people he could love in return, he finally understood this was not meant to be. It was not in the cards. Fate had decided otherwise. Or perhaps it had been homophobia and shame that had decided otherwise, that had kept him at a safe distance, excluded, apart from the normal course of affairs. Or perhaps the family he came from was broken, was composed of broken souls who could never be a proper family no matter how hard they tried. Perhaps they had never learned to love each other. Perhaps they had never learned to forgive, to talk, to work out problems. Perhaps no one had ever told them how important family was. Perhaps they were all disappointed in each other, for their own reasons, in their own ways, and wanted nothing more to do with it. Or perhaps he himself was to blame: perhaps he was still emotionally unstable, unwell, had unrealistic expectations. Perhaps he was not a very nice person. Perhaps he was an embarrassment who didn't know he was an embarrassment. Perhaps he was not the sort of person one enjoyed spending time with.
Recently, as the holidays once more approached, he began to wonder if he would receive an invitation from his brother to spend Thanksgiving dinner with him and his family. In the past, he had invited himself on such occasions, but felt uncomfortable doing this. One year he tried cooking Thanksgiving dinner himself. He invited his brother, but his brother did not come.
Christmas was likewise problematic. He did not want to invite himself to houses where, he suspected, he was not really wanted. Yet previous experience had shown him Christmas would come and go and no invitation would be forthcoming.
Pondering these things, he decided to do nothing. He had learned, the hard way, that you could not force people to love you. It would either happen or it wouldn't. No amount of wishing and hoping would change that fact of life.
He knew also that people who love each other found ways to show it. There were phone calls, visits, cards, letters, Christmas presents, text messages. He looked back on the few calls and letters he had received from his family and realized that perhaps they had other priorities, other interests, that he should not fault them for this, but rather ... do nothing.
So this boy, who once cried while watching sentimental TV shows about nice families, who tried to force other families to adopt him and love him and heal him and include him, who ran far, far away from home looking for love, looking for someone who cared, who could help him make sense of his life—this boy, this unhappy child, this confused adult, this man whose life was marred by devastating self-doubts and self-loathing, this man who tried many times to kill himself because he could not stand the pain of being who he was, the pain of being so alone in the world—this man finally decided to let it go. And to do … nothing.
But before embarking on that path, he wanted to find a way to let people know why he no longer called, no longer visited, no longer seemed to care. He wanted them to know it wasn't their fault, that he realized he was broken in ways no one could fix and that he no longer blamed them for that.
Most of all, he wanted them to know he kept his distance because it was too painful to do otherwise. This, too, he had learned the hard way. There were some people in the world who were toxic poison. No matter how much he loved and cared for them, it was best to stay away if only for his own peace of mind. He had spent far too much time dealing with such people to believe that anything good could come from it. Just the opposite had shown itself to be true. Let sleeping dogs lie. Let the dead bury the dead. He had learned those painful lessons very well.
With the holidays once again fast approaching, he resolved to address the matter once and for all. He sat down and wrote a short story. He addressed envelopes, mailed out copies. He hoped his story would be a way of saying what couldn't be said. He hoped the format of a story would convey more than ordinary words were capable of.
Mostly, he hoped the point of the story would be clear: There are things in the world that, once broken, can never be fixed. Things like children, men, women, yes, but also families and institutions and even foundational relationships like parent-child and brother-brother. Some things, once shattered, can never be put back together, can never again serve their original purpose. They can never again be what they were.
He hoped this understanding, this insight, would eventually comfort them as it had comforted him.
- Nick Wilgus is the bestselling author of MINDFULNESS AND MURDER and many other novels and screenplays.
