In my last couple years of quiet, I’ve noticed my own internal tension about how much to share ebb and flow. That tension has always been there, but over the last few years, the scale has tipped more solidly towards keeping more of my thoughts to myself. Some of my silence is feeling a bit more exposed and at risk as a trans parent and a member of a trans-parented family. Some of my silence is wanting to respect my kids and their space to tell their own stories as they age and become more and more of their own people. Some of my silence is needing to take a break and live my own life for a while with less of an outward facing public story. Needing to tell seemingly everyone in my life my most personal struggles left me craving some privacy. But know that I am (and we are) still here, we’re still figuring things out just like everyone else, and we’re still cheering on the new generations of Trans, Bi and L/G/Q parents and families.

While our whole family had a good time, and our daughter in particular seemed to get something she really needed in her time with other COLAGErs, as parents, we struggled because trans parents were virtually invisible in Provincetown that week (and I sincerely doubt it was because so many of us were there “stealth”…). Historically, Provincetown is a stronghold for cisgender gay men, and over time cisgender lesbians have also found footing there (and like much of the Cape, this is mostly affluent white folks). But, like many places that historically cater to gay and lesbian people, it’s not automatically a comfortable place for all trans people (or bi people…).

Even though the town itself is not the most comfortable place for us, the COLAGE programming that week is the most accessible way for us to surround our kids with a community of folks in similar, if not perfectly identical, shoes. We have been nothing but impressed with COLAGE as an organization. The organization was built by children of GLBTQ people to serve the needs of all people with GLBTQ parents, and they place the needs of our kids first — before our needs as parents, before any concerns about how our families “look” or how our kids “should” frame their stories for political lobbying or fundraising goals. And while COLAGE historically, reached out to children with gay and lesbian parents, they have clearly done very real internal work as an organization to make certain they are being truly inclusive of people with trans, bi and queer parents. They have produced the only published resource I know of that provides information and support to people with trans parents in their COLAGE KOT guide. We’ve also seen evidence that they are doing real work around race and class issues among GLBTQ-headed families.

So, our family will be there in 2015 (July 25-Aug 1 2015). This coming year, some friends (in a family with a similar configuration) are also planning to go. We wanted to put it out there publicly now, while it’s still possible to make reservations (p-town can be a hard place to find lodging unless you start early). We will be staying at Dune’s Edge campground (the cape is expensive, and camping is how our family can afford to go). Have you considered going, either to join other queer families on vacation or get your kids (ages 8 and up) to COLAGE, but maybe held back because you thought your family might be the “only one” with a trans parent? Well, this year you won’t be the only one, so consider joining us.

If you decide to go, please get in touch (firsttimesecondtime@gmail.com), and when it gets closer to that time, we’ll arrange for a low key unofficial meet-up. Here is a link to register for COLAGE at Family Week, which serves kids entering 3rd-12th grade in the fall. Volunteer positions are also available for kids over 18 (applications due March 2). COLAGE has also put together some tips for making the trip on a budget.

To be clear, I really wouldn’t call this official organizing. We’re not affiliated with either the COLAGE organizers or the broader “Family Week” programming. We’re just a family that contains a trans parent, and we want other people in similar shoes to know we will be there. If you decide to come, you won’t be the only one, your kids won’t be the only ones, and we’d love to meet you. Together maybe we can carve out a little corner of P-town for us all to feel a bit more comfortable. Please be in touch.

I could write about what is was like to support my partner through a grueling shift during which he doubted himself every step of the way, had to make decisions that terrified him, and coped with days that seemed to alternate between presenting new kinds of pain and new kinds of elation. Or I could write about what it was like to shepherd my kids through this change. Our daughter Leigh was five when her little brother insisted that “Mama is a man!” Leigh fiercely stood up for Ezekiel insisting, “Mama is a woman” and looking to me to back her up. When I couldn’t, she was shocked and tried to campaign that Ezekiel not change anything and “stay a woman.” However, once she adjusted to the idea, she became one of Ezekiel’s most vocal supporters. But I don’t want to write only about Ezekiel, Leigh, or Ira, because those are their stories, not mine. I love them all, but there’s more to me than the love I have for my family.

When Ezekiel first started to deal with his gender a few years ago, a collection like this would have made all of the difference to me. The book is getting good reviews, and I suggest you get yourself a copy!

After much scrolling, the music starts up.

“As I go down to the river to pray, studying about that good old way, and who shall wear the robe and crown, good lord, show me the way. Oh, sinner let’s go down, let’s go down, come on down. Oh, sinner let’s go down, down to the river to pray.”

I do love that song, especially the rich harmonies of that particular arrangement. He and I sang along, and with just us alone in the house, we were really belting it out.

A little while later, he looks up from his legos and asks, “Aba, what is a sinner?” I’ve explained sex, conception via donor sperm, and my gender transition to my kids without missing a beat (and a whole host of other topics that make many parents cringe), but at this question I caught my breath.

“It’s a word some people use to mean choosing to do a wrong thing.” Maybe I should have stopped there, but I added, almost under my breath, “…it’s not a word I like very much.” The music kept playing. He went back to his game. I went back to cleaning the kitchen.

There are obvious differences between my son’s life and mine, but we are similar in so many ways. He’s sensitive and easily overwhelmed by too many people. He’s a wonderful friend and a fastidious rule follower, especially in any kind of institutional or group setting, always concerned he might do a wrong thing without realizing. He’s also always got a joke at the ready, and when he’s comfortable, he’s fantastically hillarious and deeply connected. Not everyone gets to see that side of him. He does not relax easily, and sometimes masks his tension with humor.

I know he is his own independent person, shaped every day by the world he lives in and all of the people who love and care for him, and I know there is so very much more to him than the handful of genes he got from me. But sometimes the reflection is so true, it is hard to remember that we are not one and the same.

In his passing question, I catch a glimpse of how he might have experienced the world I grew up in. In that moment, I see more clearly how I experienced it. I’m struck that he made it to age 5-and-a-half without knowing the meaning of the word “sinner.” I didn’t realize we were keeping this word from him.

I cannot remember a time when that word was not hanging over me, when I was not constantly aware that I was fundamentally flawed, not acutely aware of the very real possibility of eternal damnation. I’m not one of those people who doesn’t remember their childhood. I have vivid memories, both painful and happy, back well into early toddlerhood.

I know many people find meaning in religion like the evangelical Christianity with which I was raised. They find reassurance in messages of redemption, relief in acknowledging their fundamental and inborn flaws and for some, this form of belief provides forgiveness and motivation for improvement. But in this moment, I imagine my particular son in a world where there is a constant drumbeat message of “you are wrong, you have sinned, and if you don’t do this right, you will go to hell.” I see so clearly how this could break a child like him, one who is so sensitive, who wants so very much to do the right thing, one who seems to remember everything.

When I was his age, and long before, and long after, this message came from the pulpit every Sunday. It came from formal religious education and everyday conversations and religious teaching inside my home. Later it came from summer camp and from youth group. It was woven into every aspect of our lives. There are people who have experienced exactly this message in a much harsher form than I did, in the form of exorcisms, or overt physical abuse. Thankfully this was not true in my family. Instead, in my home, this harsh message also came alongside very real love and affection from my parents. But I was taught that at my core, I was worthless and wrong. This message was in place from the very beginning, from my earliest memories. I was also a child who was sexually aware from a very young age. I did not have words for who I was, but I knew that what I desired was wrong. It has taken a lifetime to undo these lessons. I still find tendrils left to unlearn.

I believe Leelah Alcorn’s parents loved her. I believe they are grieving at her death, and that their pain is made more acute by the public outcry. I also believe they did not know her, that they did not know how to love her, that they hurt her, and that their actions contributed to her death. Children hide who they are when they know they are not safe. I am so impressed that Leelah had the courage and strength to tell her parents who she was at such a young age, in an environment she knew to be hostile. I am heartbroken they did not hear her, that they would not see her. Her story has caught fire, largely because of the power and clarity of her writing, and because she claimed a public platform to speak for herself, but at an excruciatingly high cost. But Leelah was not alone. So many have gone before her, and without change, change inside every single family and every single community, many more will go after.

I know I am flawed as a parent. I live through the daily puzzles of trying to figure out what my kids need, and whether and how I can give it to them or help them find it. The daily work of parenting them pushes me to my limits, forces awareness of both weaknesses and strengths I never would have known without them. From this vantage point, I see more clearly and compassionately why my parents could not give me what I needed, but I also see the damage done more starkly. I’m certain there is something my children need that I am not giving them, that I do not understand or cannot see. I hope that when they know what that is, they will find a way to tell me, and I will find a way to listen. I hope that eventually they will understand I was doing my best with the tools I had, just like I know my parents were, even if I came through with bruises.

I cannot know if Leelah’s parents were doing their best with the tools they had. I know only the barest outline of one part of their lives, primarily through what Leelah shared in her writing. But I grew up steeped in a religious culture perhaps somewhat similar to theirs, so I’ll make an educated guess that the actions they took to cut Leelah off from the outside world, to “fix” her, were taken because they genuinely believed they were doing the right thing. To be clear, that doesn’t excuse their actions. Not in the slightest. Rather, it points to a bigger problem. More people need to be called to task than only Leelah’s parents. With perhaps a precious few exceptions, the evangelical christian religious culture deeply hurts queer kids. It teaches us we are flawed and unworthy of love from the very beginning. But it doesn’t just hurt queer kids. I have no knowledge of whether my own children are going to be queer, but I can see how messages of condemnation could easily crush them, particularly a child like our youngest. Rigid messages about what is and isn’t acceptable, what is and isn’t sin, can drive deep wedges between parents and children, cut all of us off from each other and from the connections and love we most need. And when I say “messages of condemnation” I don’t just mean overt messages of hate. I also mean Christians who mask what they really think of gay, trans, lesbian, and bi people with “love” — anyone who talks about “loving the sinner and hating the sin,” perhaps appearing welcoming and affirming, while still classifying the very core of who someone is, who they are and who they love, as wrong. That message can do just as much harm as overt hatred, albeit in a slightly different form.

I am 37 years old. I’m a transgender man. I have two amazing kids, a wife of 10 years who I love deeply, and a rich community of friends and family. Getting here has not been easy. My parents did not have the tools to parent a queer kid in the way that I needed. But they also gave me other things that I did need to get where I am now, as a strong and healthy #reallivetransadult. They taught me lessons by example in perseverence and fighting fiercely for what you believe in, and even eventually, once they really understood what their now-grown child needed, they truly changed. By their actions they have changed the religious community around them for the better. I’m grateful we made it through. Leelah has reminded me, and all of us, that not everyone does. We all have a lot of work to do.

Trans Lifeline, 877-565-8860
If you are under 24, the Trevor Project Lifeline is available at 866-488-7386
The National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-8255

Family Week is a joint venture between COLAGE, a non-profit organization run by and for children with one or more gay, lesbian, bi, trans or queer parent, and Family Equality, an advocacy organization for LGBT-headed families. I don’t know the entire history, but in the past these two organizations have sometimes collaborated closely at Family Week itself, and sometimes had a more distant relationship.

As Gail wrote earlier, we had been to Family Week before, and while we enjoyed some of the Family Equality programming for younger kids, we were motivated to go back in particular so Leigh could participate in COLAGE programming, which starts at age 8. We had been impressed with them as an organization before, but we also knew that Leigh was now heading into COLAGE camp as likely one of very few kids with a trans parent, and we weren’t really sure how that would go. I can say now, after interacting with them much more closely for this week, and leaving Leigh in their care, that this confidence was well placed. I now have an even bigger organizational crush on COLAGE than I did before. Here is why I love them even more now:

1) They are serious about building space that is by and for kids-of-queers. They work actively with the kids to tell their OWN story, to understand their own identities, to build a just world, and work to empower them to make changes (about more than Trans and GLBQ related issues).

2) We saw first-hand the ways that they build community among their members. The volunteers and staffers who were there as counselors interacted even with much younger COLAGErs in such open and affirming ways. I felt so much warmth and inclusion from all of them towards our kids, even Ira, who was too young to actually be in their official scope. This warmth came to us, too, as parents, but their focus was on building affirming, empowering and supportive spaces for our kids. I felt so grateful for this. In conversations with some of the organizers, and in the “variety show” they put on at the end of the week, we could see so clearly that they were supporting our kids as whole people, with many aspects to their identities and lives.

3) COLAGE facilitates important conversations, even if those conversations might be hard. In all of the Family Week programming, COLAGE was the organization directly addressing issues of race and racism, for both parents and kids, for both people of color and white people. I was so happy to see them holding space of their own for both parents and kids of color to get support and share resources, and that they were directly teaching white ally skills in their programming for the kids. They also hosted conversations for kids about donor conception, step parenting relationships and divorce. These topics are going to be central in the lives of some COLAGErs but might not always be the topics that “play well” in public, where kids with GLBTQ parents are under a lot of scrutiny. I’m glad to see COLAGE talking about them anyway.

4) Leigh was, indeed, to the best of our knowledge, the only child of a trans parent in her age cohort (there was at least one more in an older group, and it’s of course possible there was another parent in her group who was not out to us). We very carefully did not ask her about pretty much anything that happened at COLAGE (we feel seriously that it’s her space**), but we saw markers of her comfort there growing throughout the week. We also know that they did direct teaching for all of the kids about gender and transgender issues. Even though she was the “only one,” the fact that they offered this teaching and discussion says to us that the organization is watching out for her, and for other kids like her, and that she won’t have to do all the explaining herself. They are building a community of peers for her that really will understand her family. That sort of institutional backing is so important, and makes me feel confident encouraging other trans parents to trust COLAGE with their kids, and to trust that COLAGE has every intent of including them as full members of the community, and offering the institutional supports for them to truly belong.

5) In all of the Family Week programming, the only real content on transgender issues for parents was offered by COLAGE. They ran a Trans 101 workshop for parents (this is the first year they offered it) that was well attended and well run. The fact that this was the only real content of this type overall in all of Family Week is a problem. The fact that COLAGE was willing to fill in the gap makes me love them even more.

Seriously, if you are a Trans, Gay, Lesbian, Bi or Queer parent, or you have a kid who has such a parent, consider getting them to COLAGE in some form if it is at all possible. Because Provincetown is so expensive, Family Week is not accessible to everyone (we live relatively locally, and have to camp in order to be able to go), but I know the organization as a whole is working on being more accessible nationwide, with local chapters and additional events (including a Boston Chapter). Even if you live in an environment that is overall affirming of your family, and where your child has peers in similar shoes, I firmly believe that the kind of community COLAGE is building, and the kinds of conversations they are facilitating, are hugely beneficial. It’s one thing to know that some other kid in your neighborhood has a family like yours. It’s another thing entirely to have your own space, with your own peers and mentors, and real community there with you as you explore and solidify your own individual story and identity.

So, all of this is to say, Thank you COLAGE. Thanks for really listening to kids with queer, trans and GLB parents. Thanks for having our own kid’s back. Thanks for doing your part to push the GLBTQ-family community as a whole to get with the program on important issues. Does all of this sound awesome? Consider donating to support them.

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**Although we did not ask Leigh about COLAGE, she told us that she loved it and wants to go again next year (and gave permission for me to say that here). Consider joining us there next year. Leigh will be there for sure, so if it happens your kid has a trans parent, they won’t be the only one.

We first went to Family Week when our daughter, Leigh, was a year old, and we had a great time. We met primarily two-mom and two-dad families, with babies and with older kids. We observed the great COLAGE programming, and vowed that our daughter would attend the COLAGE camp as soon as she was old enough. We came again when our son was a baby, and again we connected with other parents like us. We again imagined the day both of our kids could participate the in the COLAGE activities, and speculated about how great it would be for our daughter in particular, to learn advocacy skills in the presence of other kids like her.

Now she is actually old enough for that COLAGE camp, but she’s no longer like the other kids. In her regular life, plenty of people know her dad is trans, and she even knows a handful other kids with trans dads (including one her age who is a close friend). But on the whole, her family is different from other families. Now we are bringing her to a camp that I long envisioned as the place where she would get to be ordinary, and she’ll still be different. I am hopeful that she might meet a kid or two her own age that has a trans parent, but I’m not positive that she will.

She has had to explain her family before, even to kids of queers, and it is not always comfortable for her. So I wonder how she will feel, but I also know she’s a fantastically adaptive kid. While I don’t know for sure how she will fare, I do know for certain that I have the problem I’m worried she will have. I’m trepidatious about Family Week. When I first went, it was so awesome to be in a town full of families like mine. Everyone “got it.” I felt like I was known and my family was known. We didn’t have to explain ourselves. Now I am a bisexual woman, married to a trans man, and interfacing with a community of people who might well not understand my family at all. Even if they are kind, and well-intentioned, they are living a life that is very different from mine in important ways.

These days, the larger umbrella LGBT spaces are in some ways harder for us than straight spaces. In straight spaces, we are often read as a straight mom and dad with two kids. That can be a little uncomfortable for me because I am a bisexual woman, but at least all of our genders are correct. In lesbian space, Ezekiel is sometimes mis-gendered, and we are sometimes assumed to be a two-mom family with an extra-butch mom. Even when people use the correct pronouns, Ezekiel doesn’t always feel like he is actually seen as a man. Cis LGB people don’t always really understand trans experiences and issues, even though they are most often well-intentioned and often think that they do understand. I worry that Family Week isn’t my event when I see things like the separate Mom’s and Dad’s family happy hours geared to gay and lesbian parents — my family has one of each, so we don’t exactly fit. Neither do we completely fit the happy hour for people with gender-non-conforming family members, because both of us and both of our kids are actually pretty gender conforming. When he was little my son wore dresses, and when he lived as a woman, my husband dressed like a man, but that’s all in our past.

A couple of months ago, my family went to the Philly Trans Health conference. The conference was great, even though the only official things I went to were a talk about gender in children’s literature and Janet Mock’s keynote. The keynote was great, but what was really awesome about the conference was feeling known. It was wonderful to be in a place where everyone understands ongoing struggles with gender dysphoria and the rollercoaster of medical and social transition. I loved the glimpses of partners and families of trans people, people who had lived some of the same struggles and triumphs as I have.

So I know what it feels like to belong, and to feel known and understood by other people, at least in some key aspects of my life, even before I speak. It is something I used to love about Family Week, and I am afraid that I am going to miss it. But we are going anyway, and I am going to try to reach out and find a community, to look for the ways this is a place where we belong, even if that’s not quite as easy as it once was. And at the very least, I’m going to take my nervousness as a reminder that it is always so important to look to the margins of whatever group may be gathering, and do my part to be explicitly welcoming, so I’ll be doing my best to connect with other families who might feeling a little bit on the outside of family week, in hopes that they may feel a bit more on the inside.

Update: This post was edited at Leigh’s request to take out a conversation she reported to us. I had meant to ask her about it before I shared it, but I forgot. I’m Sorry Leigh.

The prior times we’ve attended family week, the scene, especially at the Family Equality hosted events, is very much focused on two-mom and two-dad gay and lesbian households. Thus, we were happy to note that this year Family Equality a meet-up for families with “gender non-conforming members” on Wednesday 4-5 at the Provincetown Inn (see schedule here). There was no such nod to families with trans or “GNC” members (adults or kids) in prior years that we’ve attended, so we will make sure to be at that event. I don’t kid myself that this one event will magically make me feel 100% OK about being there as most likely one of a tiny handful of trans parents, but knowing we’re at least acknowledged somewhere on the schedule does help.

If you are attending, especially if your family contains a trans parent, and you would like to connect at family week, please be in touch (firsttimesecondtime at gmail). If we hear from enough people, we may organize a park meet-up. At the very least, we will be at the Wednesday 4-5 event on the official schedule so please feel free to say “hi.”

I’m proud that the essay I wrote was chosen to appear in this new collection from Transgress Press: Manning Up: Transsexual Men on Finding Brotherhood, Family & Themselves, a collection of works by North American trans men across a range of experiences and backgrounds, writing about the real fabric of our lives.

The New England Book Release event for Manning Up is happening tonight, June 24th 2014, at Bloc 11 cafe at 11 Bow St in Somerville MA, 7-9pm. The three MA area authors who contributed to the book, including co-editor Mitch Kellaway, will be reading our essays and there will be time for discussion and mingling, as well as copies of the book for sale. Please consider joining us. You can find more info about the event here.

With that in mind, I am organizing an informal lunchtime gathering of partners on Friday, June 13th at 11:30am. If you are a person (of any kind of gender) who is in a relationship with a trans* or genderqueer person, please join us! If the sun in shining, meet us in Love Park and grab some lunch (there are food carts there on Fridays or you can grab something at the Reading Terminal Market). We’ll meet up on the fountain steps by the Love statue — I’ll have some kind of sign so that you can identify the gathering! Looks like rain! Grab your lunch and we’ll meet up in the convention center near the registration desk and find a place where we can sit and eat and talk.

There are also more formal sessions for partners — here’s the list of sessions that list “partners of trans people” as part of their primary audience (click the links for descriptions and times). You will notice that there are sessions for trans* parents in this mix as well:

• A Family Transition
• Ally is more than just a 4-letter word: CIStemic Allyship
• From Smoochin’ To Sexin’: Navigate, Negotiate, Communicate
• FTM Masculine Hormones 101
• GRS Options for Transwomen
• How do I explain this to the kids? Talking to children about parental transition
• How to be a Great Trans Ally
• MTF- Feminizing Hormones 101
• My Entire Body is Up For Grabs: Being Affirmed, Or Not Being Affirmed
• Parenting in Color
• Partners of Color Support Group
• Pregnancy after transitioning: the male-gendered experience with fertility, pregnancy, and birth outcomes
• Trans and Kink: Playing safely and happily
• Trans-Amorous Caucus
• What’s Love Got to Do With It?
• Your Transition As Your Partner Transitions

Hopefully we will get a chance to see some of you in Philly — if you are going, leave us a note in the comments and we’ll watch out for you!

In the couple of weeks before the surgery, I realized that I was having lots of confusing feelings about the surgery. I have been looking forward to Ezekiel’s top surgery for a couple of years. I had no attachment to his old chest, and felt that the surgery would only give me more access to his body, with less discomfort on both of our parts. I wanted to be able to stop erasing a part of his body with my mind, and for his physical body to better match my mental image of him. But as surgery neared I felt more bad feelings, and it was confusing for me. Was I worried about missing his old body? Was I feeling ambivalent about transition? Finally, I figured out that I was actually feeling a lot of negativity about the actual surgery. I didn’t like the idea that I was going to escort my husband to the hospital and hand him over to a doctor who would return him to me in pain, bruised, cut, hurting, and damaged. My head knew that the surgery was good and provided an opportunity for healing, but my emotional system was feeling that the surgery was physically dangerous and damaging.

Then about a week before Ezekiel’s surgery date, I came down with a norovirus, undoubtedly passed on by the kids. In addition to really sucking, norovirus is also highly contagious. And if you catch one right before, you can’t have surgery. So when it became clear what my illness was, Ezekiel and I decided that he need to stay away from home until the virus passed (thanks K & A for the guest bed). That meant that I was sick at home taking care of two kids, who watched lots of videos while I lay in bed moaning. Eventually the virus passed and Ezekiel came home a few days before surgery.

The day before the surgery we rented a car and drove a couple of hours to stay at a bed and breakfast near the hospital. We were both nervous, but eventually we walked into the surgical center, Ezekiel was called back to get prepped. The nursing staff was good, except for rampant mis-gendering. It really sucks to be a trans person trying to access health care, or even to be a support person helping a trans person navigating health care. But we made it through, and I saw Ezekiel out to surgery and sat down to wait, to check in with friends over the wireless provided by the hospital, and to try not to think about what might be happening in the surgery room.

Soon, however, a nurse came and got me because Ezekiel was in the recovery room and asking for me. When I went back to see him in recovery, he was shaky and out of it. The surgery went fine and everything actually was fine, but he didn’t look fine — he looked like a train wreck. They gave him pain meds and he started to get nauseated, so they gave him other meds to help the nausea. He was in good spirits when he was awake, but he was in and out of consciousness and I had nothing to do but watch him and worry. I tried not to look at his chest when the nurses came to check the wrappings. They said he looked really good. I watched him as the hours ticked by and we waited for a bed. I went for walks and ate a lot of candy out of vending machines. I felt lonely, and wished that Ezekiel was around to talk to. I called family and had some lunch. Eventually Ezekiel got into a room, and I hung out with him while he got settled and eventually dragged myself back to the bed and breakfast. I was wildly happy that I didn’t have to take care of him overnight (most surgeons don’t keep you overnight for this, but I was really grateful that his did). I had managed to avoid paying much attention to things like the drains that needed to be emptied, and was grateful that someone else was in charge of helping him get to the bathroom.

The next morning, I got an education in the drains, and filled the prescription for painkillers and then it was time to head home. I drove gently, and we stopped to get a pillow to make the drive more comfortable for Ezekiel. He still wasn’t terribly interesting company, and I worried about every pothole I hit. When we got home, I left him with a friend to get settled while I returned the car. This friend had helped to get the house ready and even cooked for us. Even better, he had beer so that when I got back to the house, I got to eat and drink.

In my memory, the next several days consisted of me emptying drains and trying not to cause Ezekiel pain (his surgeon wanted us to change dressings, not all of them do). Honestly I felt like an only-barely-adequate nurse. I arranged pillows, felt bad that we’d never actually gotten around to renting a recliner, brought Ezekiel juice, water, and food, gave him medication, and wrote everything down. I peered at drain sites and lumps, praying silently that everything was really OK. I worried. In our relationship, I’m the one that doesn’t freak out, so I didn’t freak out. I called the doctor when it was needed. I waited for things to get better. I waited for Ezekiel to feel better. I spent part of every day crying and thinking I was losing my mind. Everything was going fine, why was I so emotional?

Part of my overly emotional state had to do with the amount of caretaking I was doing. We were blessed with friends and family who brought us food, hung out with Ezekiel so that I could do other things, took our kids out on adventures, and came over to help with tasks around the house. But even with all that help I was taking care of someone who sometimes needed help pulling up his pants, doing general nursing duties, and taking care of a four-year-old and seven-year-old who were worried about their father and wanting more time and attention from both of us. I was also doing everything around the house, including jobs like laundry that typically fall to Ezekiel.

Another part of my difficulty had to do with the fact that I was on my own. It took about a month after bringing him to the hospital before I really felt like I had my spouse back. At the beginning, he was too strung out on pain meds to feel to me like he was really “there.” Then I was too stressed out to connect with him, since much of what I needed to do was to scream and cry about how hard things were and how bad I felt. But I couldn’t do that, since his surgery was the proximate cause of my hard time, and I knew he already felt guilty about it, so I kept him at arms length, where I could have a chance at moderating my own emotions and reactions. And it might seem petty, but I am used to a life where Ezekiel brings me things, does things for me, goes out to get things when I need them — that’s part of how I feel cared-for as a person, that he physically cares for me. He just couldn’t do that, and I missed it.

But there was another, larger part of my difficulty that I still struggle to understand and put into words. I still feel sick thinking about how hurt he was after surgery, how fragile, how full of gross fluids. Going into surgery the thing I was most scared of was how I would bring him in whole, and how he would come out damaged. To a very large extent, that’s exactly what happened. There were glimpses of increased wholeness, like when we went in for a followup visit, and they took the bolsters protecting his nipples off, and I saw his real chest for the first time. I cried really joyful tears for a transformation that I hadn’t really believed would happen until I saw it! We were both elated, but by the time we got home the energy and elation had worn off and we were back to the hard work of recovery, back to feeling broken.

Now we are a couple of months out, and he does feel whole. I feel whole again too, and like we are building our reserves up again as a couple and as a family. I wish it had been easier for both of us. But sometimes things are just hard, and that’s OK. In reality, it was a short period of time, and now I can easily see that the outcome was worth it. At the time, it felt like things would always be hard, but the memory of what was difficult is fading rapidly. In a few more months, if someone asks me what it was like, I might just say something like “Well, it was a little rocky but that didn’t last that long. You’ll be fine.” So I want to write this now before the memory completely fades, and acknowledge publicly that it was hard, so that if you find your way here, and are struggling to support your partner after this surgery or some other one, you know you have some company.