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I "came out" when I was eight years old. Not as a gay man — that came later — but as a fatherless son.
I was only eight years old when my father died in 1978. In my third grade class in small-town suburban New Jersey, everyone else had a mother and a father. Even divorce was not as commonplace in 1978 as it is today (let alone same-sex parents).
I was the outcast, the one other kids snickered at or asked uncomfortable questions. I was the only one who had to ask to stay home the Friday before Father's Day to avoid having to use some combination of an empty cigar box, construction paper, crayons, and paste to make a gift for a father who had died of cancer six months earlier.
It wasn't until my early 20s that I came out as a gay man. Yet I credit years of having to share "Um, my father died when I was younger" in preparing me for saying proudly "I'm gay." While they are two separate and distinctly different life passages, benchmarks, maturation stages, whatever you want to call them, what I have begun to appreciate is that the experience of being a fatherless son and a gay man have put me in a unique place.
For me, one of the most inspiring aspects of being gay is feeling as though I have been given full control of the reins to shape and define my life and, as a result, my future family. In many ways this sense of independence is empowering. Yet these same feelings of "you're gay, run with it, be creative, question authority, do what is right for you" are also a reminder of being eight years old and feeling "my father is dead, everyone else my age has two parents, you're now a fatherless son, deal with it." So I did deal with it, along with my mother and three siblings, all of whom deserve incredible praise for giving me the unconditional love and varied outlets for grief that an eight-year-old needs.
In fact, I find that I am still dealing with it. This month will mark my 21st Father's Day without my dad. Twenty-one years! That's a long time. Most books on grief recognize that grieving is life-long, but why does it seem so ever-present for me, especially during the month of June, even after all this time?
I want to blame the marketing teams at Callaway golf clubs and Hallmark, who throw gift-getting ideas in our faces just as soon as Mother's Day is over and fancy pottery and hanging plants are marked down 50 percent. (Come to think of it, we could all probably blame most consumer marketers for manipulating our emotions.)
A few weeks ago, I wanted to blame Hugh Coyle, whom I don't even know personally. If you are a regular "Progeny" reader, you will remember his eloquent essay last month that examined how the added dimension of being gay influenced his feelings of loss around the death of his mother. I barely got through reading the article when I realized, yet again, that here's another thing that I won't have to do: come out to my father.
Then it hit me. This is why I am, in one sense or another, still grieving. Almost daily someone or something reminds me that I am a fatherless son. Whether it is something I read or something I experience myself, that there will continue to be benchmarks along my own life journey that I won't be able to share with my father. And this is where I am stuck.
What I would prefer to do, of course, is say, "OK, move on Kevin." Yet the planner in me wants to not only be able to anticipate any event or situation that will cause me to think about my father, but also to know how to react and, eventually, move on. (Do you think I have some control issues?)
As a result, when I meet someone, particularly a man, who has experienced early parent loss (before the age of 19), the conversation almost automatically switches to the topic of death, grieving, etc. It's sort of like a post-gaydar experience: you have found common ground with a complete stranger and you are both feeling pretty safe opening up to each other.
I remember when I first met my good friend Tracy; she was interviewing for a job at the college I was working at. During our meeting, she began to explain that she was moving back to New Jersey to be closer to her mother after the death of her father earlier that year. I felt compelled to tell her that my father had died, too. Wewent on to spend the rest of the interview talking about our fathers. It was probably not the best protocol, but for inexplicable reasons, we both felt that it was perfectly appropriate. (Interestingly enough, Tracy was one of the first people who I came out to, not as a fatherless son, but as a gay man.)
For one reason or another, I have had more success with connecting with women who have lost a parent rather than men. Even the bookstore has a wider selection of books on the topic for women than for men. One of my favorite books, in fact, is Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman. It is a courageous book that examines the life-long impact of a mother's death on her daughters. I can distinctly remember reading the review in the New York Times Book Review and thinking, "I wonder if there is a similar book for men?" Five years later, no book has been published. So I have decided to attempt to write this book myself. I'm mainly writing it for selfish reasons. I want to learn from older men who also experienced the death of their father at a young age. That way, when I turn 40, buy my first house, or go to my child's first day of school, I'll know what impact not having a father may have on my psyche.
But I'm also writing it for people like you, who have obviously cared enough to read this far into the column. I have no training as a psychologist or sociologist, but I do know what I feel. I also know that there isn't much out there to help men and those who love them to learn more about our own grief from each other. Maybe it's because men tend to be less willing to share or because men tend to grieve differently than women.
All I know is that each time I meet an individual who has lost a parent, I feel a sense of relief knowing that I am not alone. Let's come out together.
This is Kevin McAteer's first piece of writing for OITM. He is in the very early stages of research for his book and welcomes comments about this column and topic; contact him at mcateer@middlebury.edu
