The One Woman Who Made Me Cry At Pride This Year
It was like watching the grinch grow a heart
It was 32 degrees by noon. That’s 90* Fahrenheit.
Blistering hot.
Water bottles and the smell of sweat.
I didn’t expect the parade to be very big. Covid is still raging here, hospitals are still full and people who don’t have a death wish are still wearing masks to the grocery store. Me included. Didn’t think there’s be a big turn out.
Omg, I was so wrong.
We turned the corner from the parking lot and saw a sea of people. Literally, thousands of people lining the streets waiting for the parade to start.
Rainbow umbrellas and facemasks everywhere.
Biggest parade I’ve ever seen here…
See, here’s the thing. I live in a Podunk kind of place, where strangers give you a dirty look and pull their kids away if you have pink hair, for cripes sakes.
I wish I was kidding. Best not to be too “different” here.
Farm country, bread basket, the kind of place they give directions by old landmarks that don’t exist anymore. Like, y’all take a right at the old hatchery and then swing a left where the sheaves used to be. Then they look at you like you’re the idiot if you don’t know what they mean.
Y’all not from here, then?
A parade here is maybe 20 minutes. Half an hour if it’s the summer one where they haul out the old tractors and farm implements from the museum and pull them through downtown on flatbed trailers.
Never fails, someone is going to muse on how sad that the Calliope don’t work no more, they used to start the parades with it you know, nevermind that it hasn’t worked for years.
Hell, it takes longer to leave a parade than watch it, given that most parking lots here only have one exit. Have I painted a clear enough picture?
So, yeah. Totally was not expecting what I got…
It was like watching the Grinch grow a heart…
A senior’s home showed up. Can you believe it? A dozen wheelchairs, if not more. Some motorized, some pushed by caregivers.
Little old ladies and wizened old men with snow white hair wearing neon colors and rainbow leis. Ear to ear smiles as they waved rainbow flags. Old ladies waving to the crowd like the Queen on promenade. Here. In this place. How do you not cry, seeing that?
I tried to get a picture to share, but they’re all just the backs of random heads that popped in front of my phone. Seems everyone wanted *that* picture.
Snow white beards and farmers in jeans and rainbow shoes.
It wasn’t the fancy corporate floats that got me…
There were lots of those. Fancy floats by banks and corporations with enough cash in the coffers to put on a show in the name of equality. And I appreciate that. They help send the message that hate is not okay.
But they didn’t grab my heart.
It was the beat up old trucks decorated with giant froufy plastic flowers and rainbow streamers from the dollar store that got me.
The ones cobbled together with lots of heart and not much cash.
All the groups and clubs and tiny little pubs. The ones that showed up with beat up old vehicles or maybe someone’s vintage mustang convertible, pulled out of the garage and decorated for the occasion.
Couple of old people or kids sitting in the vehicle or on the back of the truck and a couple dozen following behind decked out in glitter and rainbows, throwing lollipops from the bulk store.
Kids in the street scrambling to grab them. Shrieking when they did.
Little kids in princess dresses and tiny doggies in rainbow tutus.
Here. In farm country.
The Quakers showed up, for gosh sakes…
They were little old ladies, mostly. Grey hair and straw hats, sneakers and pedal pushers straight off the Mary Tyler Moore show.
Wrinkled old hands holding their Quaker signs, waving as they walked by. The ones who didn’t get to carry the big flags waved rainbow flags, and I swear I’ve never seen a bunch of old ladies so pleased with themselves.
Mom hugs were there, of course…
First time I saw mom hugs, you couldn’t even buy the shirts on Amazon or Etsy yet, much less a local store. Women of all ages, sizes and shapes, running alongside the parade, wearing shirts that say “Free Mom Hugs.”
It was years ago, and I remember wondering if people hug total strangers, but I didn’t need to wonder long. Their arms were never empty. Still aren’t.
Can I take a minute to tell you something you might not know? Because it’s important…
Do you know many LGBTQ people are rejected by their families? The numbers are horrible and heartbreaking.
Up to 1.6 million young people are homeless in America and over 40% of them are LGBTQ. 46% of homeless LGBT youths ran away from home because of family rejection, 43% were kicked out, and 32% of them had been abused physically and/or mentally for being gay before they fled to the streets.
So many parents think it’s a “choice” and if they come down hard on their kids, they’ll force them to change. They’re wrong.
We don’t choose who we love. Heterosexual people can’t be bullied into being gay, and LGBTQ people can’t be bullied into being straight. It doesn’t work that way. We are how we are. We love who we love.
Up to 70% of LGBTQ people experience rejection from family.
I read about one man who never told his Dad. But when he was 57, he bought his 89 year old father a computer during Covid. His Dad discovered Facebook, learned his son was gay. Called him up and said never, ever call me again. You are not my son. 57 years old, the man was broken and sobbing.
Couple of years ago, a Pennsylvania dad gave out over 700 hugs before he stopped counting…
That’s where the whole “mom hugs” movement came from. Parents realizing how many kids are rejected. Thrown out. Disowned and abandoned. It hurts. Doesn’t matter if the “kid” is 18 or 57. It still hurts.
I don’t know what you have to be made of to throw your child away. I don’t. But I know it happens way more often than it should.
Some people blame religion, but I don’t buy it…
The United Church showed up at the parade here. Waving rainbow flags and signs saying God loves everyone. They don’t use a different Bible, you know? The Quakers were there.
Couple years ago, a church in Austin joined the Mom Hugs movement. They hugged until their arms fell off. Among all the “mom hugs” and “dad hugs” shirts, one man wore a “Pastor hugs” shirt. People cried.
All those people pointing at the Bible, they’re wrong. But they don’t know they’re wrong. Humans have been wrong for all of time. We thought the earth was flat. We didn’t “believe in” germs.
We’ve been wrong before. We’ll be wrong again.
Having something to blame maybe makes it easier to reject people and still be able to look in the mirror and sleep at night. But it doesn’t make it right.
Hurting another human for not living the way you want them to is not right. It’s abuse at worst, neglect at best. Either way, it hurts.
The one woman who made me cry at Pride…
It was the first in-person parade in three years because of Covid. And it just kept going. And going.
Every time a marching band came around the corner, I wondered if that was the end of the parade. Nope. It wasn’t. There was more.
Eventually, I could hear people around me whispering.
Oh. My. God.
It was like it collectively dawned on everyone that something pretty amazing was happening. Here, in this crazy little backwards place.
Like our hearts grew three sizes that day.
It was almost at the end of the parade when I saw her. Final stragglers at the end, and no wonder.
He was Greek god beautiful. Tall, blonde, broad shouldered. Wearing a tank top with a pride logo. Not a child, but a fully grown man.
Beside him, his mom. Hair more salt than pepper, she was too old and not in any shape to make that walk in ninety degree heat. Trudging more than walking. Head down. Exhausted. Her tshirt said PROUD MOM.
And then, while I watched, she looked up at him and the look on her face? That’s when tears rolled down my cheeks.
Because that’s all any of us really want.
For someone to look at us that way.
“Hope will never be silent.” — Harvey Milk
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, My PRIDE Feels Like THIS.
