We all hear the coming out stories of either parents accepting their child’s coming out as a completely normal thing, or out right rejection of their child coming out. It’s either one side of the spectrum, or the other. Good or bad--unconditional love or confusion and outright rejection. But we never hear of the fuzzy in between; the times where a parent might be just as confused as their child, the times where a parent wants to understand, but just doesn’t know how to voice their acceptance.
In an Easter miracle, one Twitter user, Annie Kenyon, took to social media to tell the story of her girlfriend’s mother who just wanted to show her just how much she’s welcomed into the family.
She starts off explaining that, recently, she’s been spending much of her time over her girlfriend’s home, almost to the point where she practically lives there. And with self-quarantine in place, she’ll be sticking around for a while longer.
So on Easter morning Kenyon went through her usual early morning routine: waking up early to go for a jog before her girlfriend wakes up. But Easter morning was different for her. That morning the lights were on and someone else was up at the crack of dawn.
There in the living room she found her girlfriend’s mother with a collection of hearts and letters made from her circuit (a machine that cuts patterns out of flat vinyl sheets). It seemed she was arranging them on the window for somebody to see, but who?
After Kenyon surprised her girlfriend’s mother, she explained that she was setting up a surprise for Kenyon and CeeCee, her daughter, as an apology for when CeeCee came out.
When CeeCee came out she was dating her brother’s best friend. Her family had become incredibly close with CeeCee’s boyfriend, and she had faked her happiness with him for so long that she was afraid of disappointing her family and breaking up with him. When she finally came out, she blamed her homosexuality for hurting her ex and her family was surprised at her announcement. As Kenyon explained in her tweet, CeeCee “experienced a kind of ‘soft’ ostracization.”
After Kenyon briefly told CeeCee’s mother that CeeCee isn’t mad or doesn’t blame her for anything, the mother explained her surprise gift.
In Kenyon’s words:
“With everything going on, I just wanted to do something to make sure CeeCee knows how much I love her and want her to be happy, and for you to know how welcome you are here. Anyway, now that it’s done it seems kind of corny to me, but I meant well.”