Transmissions: The loss of a mother

"She's gone."

The text flashed across my iPhone's screen at 2:42 a.m. Eastern Time. I had already been awake for some time, a combination of jet lag and the ongoing conversation leading up to that message. I was on a trip to the East Coast for work – and my sister was at the emergency room with my mother.

It's now been two weeks, give or take, since my mom passed away. It's still fresh in my mind, of course. How could it not, as my sister and I have spent our days working on the arrangements. She never wanted a funeral and did not leave a will, but there is still plenty to do.

Her name was Sherry, "spelled like the wine." Born in Arizona in 1941, her family moved to the Los Angeles suburbs in the 1950s. There, while in high school, she met the man who would become my dad. They wed months after graduation. Seven years later, I was born.

Now I know this is not her obituary, but my trans column. I have certainly indulged you with a lot of her history. I'm going to give you a bit more, too.

I've told the story many times before, of the night I first realized that there were other people in the world who were trans like me. I was in the back seat of my parents’ 1963 Dodge Dart. My dad was driving, and mom was in the passenger seat. I – then about 6 or 7 years old – was laying in the back seat. It was evening, and we were heading home after a long day trip.

The radio, a staticky AM radio playing from a single speaker in the dash, was tuned to the only thing my parents could find on the dial: a call-in therapy program. A mother was calling in, distraught, as their child had told them they were trans.

To me, the news alone that there might be people like me was electric, but I don't recall the advice of the therapist. Over the sound of the radio, my mom said to my dad a simple sentence, "That must be so hard for that mom, having to deal with that."

Mom, you had no idea.

It would be about 20 or more years before I would come out, though I can assure you there were plenty of clues leading up to that moment. A broken pair of mom's slingbacks, unfamiliar clothing discovered hidden in my room a time or so, and so on. These moments were never directly addressed by my mom, though I can't help but imagine she had her suspicions. I know others in the family did.

When I did finally reach that time where – like that story on that long-ago AM radio – I came out to my parents, they were disappointed, confused, and upset. We tried family therapy for a short while, which proved useless.

Mom set some ground rules, and the biggest was that I could not reach out to the rest of the family. She did not want my sister, then 6 years old, to know. She also did not want her mother to know.

It hurt, but I abided by this as best as I could.

 
A few years later – after I kept pushing the issue – she relented. I got to share this with my sister, though I suspect she already had things figured out by then. Later, my mom shared it with my grandmother, who was accepting from the get-go. I think this helped my mother along.

I won't, however, tell you that everything was perfect from then. When I told her of my intentions to undergo genital reassignment surgery, she very flatly told me that she did not approve.

I made it clear that I was not seeking her approval.

It would be a couple of years after this that my mother would come to a place of acceptance, in part due to my sister's own efforts, as well as mine.

Eventually, mom would come to me for advice on a trans student at the school she worked at as a campus safety officer, trying to understand what she should say and do to show her support. Yes, I did find this funny, even as she would still sometimes slip with my name or a pronoun here and there.

I did my best to remember my mother sitting in the passenger seat of that Dodge Dart, and how hard she felt it would be on that long-forgotten mother on the radio. I suppose, in spite of everything, she did teach me a lot about grace.

For the last few decades, right around this time of the year, she would ask me how the Transgender Day of Remembrance went. (Yours truly started the event in 1999 to remember trans victims of violence.) She wanted to hear what events happened, and where. In the end, even if she likely never fully understood everything, she was nevertheless proud of who I was and what I've done with my life.

Her health was bad for the last handful of years, as she struggled with both diabetes and congestive heart failure. Then, a few weeks ago, she found herself unable to breathe, went into the emergency room, then to a care facility. She got better, for a little while, then was back under care. From there, things went downhill very quickly.

I got to speak to her once more before she passed. We told each other of our love before she passed the phone to my sister, unable to talk much further.

"She's gone," read the words of the text – and she was.

Gwen Smith might otherwise have written a Thanksgiving column. Maybe she did. You'll find her at www.gwensmith.com