A mother’s heart breaks and then finds solace with others who also feel their sons and daughters have been taken from them.
Transcript
This morning, Facebook reminded me that I once had a handsome son with a smile that would light up a room.
Staring at me on the screen was this dark and handsome, tall boy with a dazzling smile, standing at the beach. I remember that vacation five years ago. The memory stabbed me like a knife in the heart, knowing that my boy doesn’t look anything like that picture.
Three years ago, my son stumbled into internet groups that told him that the reason why he didn’t fit in socially, was not due to his autism, but because he was really a woman, not a man. My son has now transitioned and is taking hormones, to try to achieve an impossible dream, that he can be a woman.
I remember that it was Sunday, and I was so excited to go to church, where the music and the prayers and the teaching comfort my soul. The people there are like my family, whom I’ve known for 30 years. As soon as I stepped into the church, though, my heart was stabbed again. There, standing by his parents, was my son’s former best friend, who was home visiting from college. He’s a nerdy kid, much like my son, who is maturing into a handsome and delightful adult. Then I saw his other former best friend, tall and handsome. My mind flashed back to when the Three Musketeers would sit together at church, and then come out to our home to play video games with other boys from the church. The sadness overtook me.
Today, the music bounced off the walls and didn’t comfort me. As the music played and tears roll down my eyes, my heart screamed to God, Why my son? Why our family? Why does he have to be the messed up one, who wants to eradicate his identity and kill who he is? Why do my best friends have their sons and I don’t have mine? Why? Why? Why? The tears kept rolling down.
Today, church was for lamenting, not encouragement. It felt right to do just that. I feel so sad today. Church is usually so comforting to me, but today, it was just one more reminder of our fractured family, and the emptiness and heartbreak and sorrow that I feel. I walked out as soon as church was over, I didn’t say hello to the college kids, who used to spend Sunday afternoons at our home playing video games with my son. I saw them talking to each other and I knew they were going to get together and hang out. But my son won’t be there. Not because he’s not invited, but because he has rewritten history, past and present, about who he is. And he has left those friends behind.
I fled because I didn’t want people to say, How are you? What do you say when your heart is bleeding from sorrow? And no one can really understand what that feels like. My church community loves us so well and their hearts are broken for us. But there’s a special kind of sadness that comes with people knowing our own sadness reflected in the eyes of people who are not in our situation. It’s like a mirror that I avoid looking into. I cringe from the looks of sadness in other people’s eyes because it reminds me that our family has been broken by cult-like trans groups, who have hijacked our child. It reminds me that we have a broken child who is systematically breaking down his own body, because he’s looking for a cure for his broken heart, and that we are surrounded by a society that tells him he will fix himself by breaking himself down.
So what do people with broken hearts do? They find other people whose hearts are broken for the same or similar reasons. I have found this tribe of parents, who understand the grief and sorrow of having a child who wants to change who he was born to be. The same thief that stole my son has stolen their children, too. I don’t shy away or cringe when I see the pain in their eyes. Somehow the reflection of pain in their eyes heals my pain, because we are sharing the same burden across many backs.
We are the wounded from this gender war that has snatched our sons and daughters from our families. We grieve together, but we also fight together. We cry today, but tomorrow we fight. Because I have found that fighting is also medicine for my broken heart.